guilds news

This page is an archive of newsposts in the "guilds" newsgroup because the ingame news archive only reaches a few months back. It might not always be up to date, but newsposts should be copied over here before they fall out of the archive in the mud itself.

      From: Epikto
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Tue Jan 19 18:06:05 2010
Reply-Code: 174e
     Lines: 4

There is working being done on the plant and mineral servers.  Progress has
been made.  Thought that might cheer a few people up.  Keep your ears
peeled for more information.  You know like me dewizzing or something...

      From: Evanescent
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Sat Mar  6 18:31:42 2010
Reply-Code: 175e
     Lines: 5

  The musketeer scoundrel and musketeer rogue terts were formerly
impossible to join due to some typos. Fixed.

              -Ev

      From: Evanescent
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Sat Mar 20 18:31:33 2010
Reply-Code: 176e
     Lines: 5

  The musketeer scoundrel tert was formerly unjoinable due to an
omission... Fixed.

              -Ev

      From: Evanescent
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Wed Mar 24 14:56:27 2010
Reply-Code: 177e
     Lines: 5

  The Vile heart and Vile soul terts are now joinable from the Vodounist
secondary.

                   -Ev

      From: Evanescent
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Thu Mar 25 05:31:30 2010
Reply-Code: 178e
     Lines: 7

  The Shih and Cleric guild shops now stock blank scrolls for scribing.
Additionally, the Shih guild's scroll components for their spells are now
called "A prayer scroll" before they are subjected to the inscribe prayer
skill, and the guild shop stocks a whole lot more of them.

                   -Ev

The Fallen GM and the mobs in the guild have been updated.

~Nerina

In addition to the standard changes (see earlier news post) the mobs in the
Fallen guild now give killing penalties in "fallen dues". As per Kereth's
earlier update, those will be converted to pp the first time the player
logs in as a fallen.

~Nerina

Since there has been confusion: this round of guild updates is mainly to
fix the double dues. If I see a glaring bug at level of "this chunk of code
isn't used at all" I'll fix it, but I'm not going through eq or fight
mechanics.

So what changed:

Shadowlord
Will talk in the channel. Would answer questions if he had any answers.
Will give penalties in fallen dues when killed
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him

Fallen in the guild
Don't aggro to other fallen wielding their weapons.
Give fallen dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.

~Nerina

Baraticus
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him

Guards in the guild
Don't aggro to other fighters wielding their weapons.
Give fighter dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.
The guards with weapon breakers had a bugged special that didn't actually
do anything. This has been fixed.

Additionally some minor interactions between the GM and the guards have
been fixed.

~Nerina

Palnatoki
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him
Some messages were fixed

Warriors in the guild
Don't aggro to other jomsvikings wielding their weapons.
Give jomsviking dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.

Heimdall
Will no longer attempt to block a non-existent guild exit when aggroed.
(Won't block the existing guild exit either since this wasn't working to
start with).
Dues penalty when killed has been changed to follow the new formula.
Greets guild members when they pass by like other guild mobs
Alarms the guild when attacked.

~Nerina

Paladins may now use the "confess" command in the Chamber of Honor, for
those not wishing to wait until next login to have their dues become honor.

-Kereth Midknight

Kilburn
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him
One part of Kilburn's special wasn't working. This has been fixed.
Kilburn was updated to use the current present code.
Also added a hint indicating there's something he would like to be
presented with.

Mages in the guild
Don't aggro to guild members wielding their weapons.
Give mage dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.
Were given some pocket money.

~Nerina

At the request of the bard leader and at least one other bard, the bard
guild will experience the following changes in its skill layout (effective
at boot):

Lost hiking at level 2.
Brawling moved from level 6 to level 2.
Cure poison moved from level 12 to level 16.
Pick locks moved from level 17 to level 12.

-Kereth Midknight

Salmoneous
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info.
Greets guild members who come to visit him.
Updated to use the current present code.

Hakiem
Greets guild members when they pass by.
Lets Salmoneous make his own channel announcements if he's being attacked.

~Nerina

Heimdall won't throw sens mind error upon entry anymore. Sorry about that.

~Nerina

Han Fei Tzu
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info.
Greets guild members who come to visit him.

Monks in the monks training area and the tournament
While the training area is under the guild, it is a separate, level locked
newbie area where the monks wait for opponents to train with/compete in the
tournament. As such, they don't count as guild mobs per se, and have been
excluded from this update.

~Nerina

Zhav's'ash
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him

Undead servants in the guild
Don't aggro to guild members wielding their weapons.
Give necro dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.

~Nerina

The base list of generic GM channel chats got adjusted and fluffed out a
little, to make their channel usage slightly more varied and hopefully less
repetitive. This will be more noticeable on GMs who only had the generic
options.

~Nerina

A number of new ask topics have been added for Kilburn courtesy of Azamir.

~Nerina

Sorush
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Will no longer charge 500000 honor points from a paladin present in the
room when he dies. Instead, gives standardized penalty in paladin dues when
killed.
Will no longer attempt to make the paladin leader abdicate if they are
present when he dies.
Will no longer attempt to make paladins unable to vote in the guild
elections if they are in the room when he dies.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him

Paladin guards on duty (Unlike other guilds mobs, Paladin guards don't stay
put but patrol in around the entrance of their guild.)
Don't aggro to guild members wielding their weapons.
Give paladin dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if they are attacked.

~Nerina

As far as I'm able to tell, Sorush was the only GM attempting to
force-abdicate guild leaders involved in killing him. That has now been
removed.

There has been rumors about Blitzar and Flor doing the same. Those rumors
don't seem to be true.

~Nerina

Katherine
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics she knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit her

Mobs in the guild
Don't aggro to guild members wielding their weapons.
Give psi dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.
Aren't walking helpfiles anymore, though it also means that only one
wise-looking adept will actually answer questions.

~Nerina

Hulthrush
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him
He should now recognize the slayer status that was previously given only by
his summons.

Gilgal
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him
Should no longer talk about long since removed Odyssey Island quest.
Present code for said quest also removed.

~Nerina

Blitzar
Will talk and answer questions in the channel.
Double dues penalty fixed.
Lists topics he knows when asked about help or info
Greets guild members who come to visit him
The word of A-shug's demise has finally reached Blitzar, and he's no longer
interested acquiring the staff of necromancy. The present code has been
removed.

Guards in the guild
Don't aggro to guild members wielding their weapons.
Give templar dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.

~Nerina

As per the Necro leader's request, Necromancer check room no longer accepts
following items:

* bulk 2 armor
* staves
* good aligned items

The check room has been cleaned from disqualified items.

~Nerina

Cultists can now "confess" to their recent deeds at the altar of repentence
in their guild, if they wish to convert any cultist dues, positive or
negative, into patron points without waiting for the conversion that
happens at login.

-Kereth Midknight

Abjurer guild mobs
Don't aggro to guild members wielding their weapons.
Give abjurer dues penalties when killed.
List topics they know when asked about help or info
Greet guild members when they pass by (once a boot to avoid spam)
Sound an alarm if the guild is attacked.
Kizama will no longer claim that you need 25,000 guild dues to pass lvl
14th, and another 75000 guild dues to reach 20th level in your guild.

~Nerina

It should no longer be possible to gain a felldagger by creating a
character with the same name as someone who long ago had a felldagger and
was purged, then going to the Repentence Room in the Fallen guild and
repenting.

-Kereth Midknight

Fallen may now also "confess" in their repentence room, in order to convert
fallen dues to power points without waiting for the automatic conversion
upon relogging.

-Kereth Midknight

The super high undead stats obtained via the earlier bug (which were
thought only to affect combat) turn out to have been (up until a few
minutes ago/boot for undead already loaded) accessible also via checks that
involve determining what someone's unmodified stats are (i.e. before eq,
etc).

Since these checks are rare, this went unnoticed for some time, but there
have definitely been some effects. As a rather obscure case of this, for
example, this problem resulted in, for reasons too complex to elaborate on,
undead who faced Kaeseluk actually -gaining- absurd quantities of luck from
his special attack, which luck would then affect other aspects of gameplay,
both in and out of combat.

This has been fixed. A fix to cleanup pets whose luck stats have gone
haywire (and deal with some other undead pet luck issues) is forthcoming,
most likely next boot.

-Kereth Midknight

Necromancer Undead were being assigned a random luck stat on creation, then
that stat was never being rerolled. Thus, a pet that was born lucky was
lucky forever, and a pet that was created with bad luck was unlucky
forever, and there was no way for players to know if their pet was lucky or
not.

This has now been corrected. Necromancer pets should periodically reroll
their luck now. This will also have the effect of clearing up super high
luck stats from pets who have managed to obtain them from the prior bug.

-Kereth Midknight

Bards in the restringing room may now also "retune" their lute, to convert
bard dues (should they happen to obtain any for any reasons) into bard
points.

-Kereth Midknight

Due to an oversight on my part during the last update to their guild, the
cost for prime guild Jomsvikings training their guild's spells was higher
than it ought to have been. This should be corrected at boot. My apologies.

-Kereth Midknight

Upon advancement in your guild, your bonuses will now be more
pleasingly sorted.

W -who should have been asleep 2 hours ago- xyz

The fighter GM and the guild mobs were confused by the gender of the female
guild members they were extending their greetings to. This bug seems to
have been exclusive to the fighter guild, but let me know if any guild mob
uses wrong gendered title ot pronoun when greeting a player in person.

Guildmasters' channel chats are an exception to the previous rule. I'm
aware that currently none of the gms use the correct female titles or
pronouns when referring to the guild leaders and champions. I'm working on
a fix for this, but unfortunately, there's an unforeseen lack of code
support for this feature. I have requested the support to be added, but
until that is done there's nothing I can do. Please be patient.

~Nerina

The following changes have been made in the Templar guild.

* Lost Shield of Love.
* Lost Holy Tunic.

* Mana blessing moved to lvl 1 from lvl 4.
* Walk on Water moved to lvl 4 from lvl 6.
* Divine Calling moved to lvl 6 from lvl 14.
* Spirit Eye moved to lvl 5 from lvl 8.
* Impassibility moved to lvl 6 from lvl 20.
* Unfurl Banner moved to lvl 8 from lvl 10.
* Manna from Heaven moved to lvl 14 from lvl 6.
* Clarity moved to lvl 16 from lvl 14.

* Gained Liturgy at lvl 10.

~Nerina

The following change has been made in the Missionary guild:

* Manna from heaven moved to lvl 14 from lvl 13.
* Altering moved to lvl 13 from lvl 14.

~Nerina

The guild masters should now use the correct titles for female
leaders/champions and pronouns for everyone applicaple when talking on the
channels about the officers of their guild.

~Nerina

As some of you know and the rest can probably guess, we have a common dues
formula shared by all corpse-duesing guilds. This means that a fighter and
a mage will get same amount of dues from duesing the same mob. Some guilds
have bonuses and penalties applied on top of the base dues. An example for
this could be a fallen getting bonuses from a good aligned corpse and
penalties from evil aligned one. To synchronize bonuses and restrictions
for different guilds, following changes have taken place:

Firstly, it has turned out that one of the available duesing skills,
tanning, had a typo in the base dues calculations, causing the items
produced by tanning to be worth four times as much dues as any other
duesing skill in the game. This has been fixed.

Secondly, skills (or item-based abilities) with restrictions on what can
and cannot be duesed, or penalties to dues gained from certain things, will
get bonuses to the amount of dues collected to compensate, based on the
severity of the restriction.

Details:

Ranger:
- Dues provided by ranger skills have been increased to compensate for the
animal-only restriction.
- Skinning will be replaced by field dressing (help skill field dressing)
in the Ranger guild. The training will convert at boot for those with
ranger levels.
- The tanning skill will now produce better armor when used on corpses of
more powerful animals. The appearance of the armor have also been updated
and will be slightly more descriptive and reflect the type of creature it
was crafted from.
- The level of the skinning has been changed to 5 from 3, and it can still
be acquired from Bandit and Barbarian guilds. The skins produced won't give
ranger dues anymore.

Druid:
- Dues provided by donating hides have been increased to compensate for the
animal-only restriction.
- Skin hide: level changed from 3 to 5, duration from 4 to 2 rounds and
cost from 8 to 5 ep.
- To accommodate the previous change:
    - Skin Hide moves from level 3 to level 5 in the druid guild.
    - Forestry moves from level 5 to level 3 in the druid guild.
- The druid guild has stopped accepting items other than the hides produced
by the skin hide skill as donations.

Assassin:
- The duration of grisly trophy skill has been raised from 1 to 2 rounds.
- The formula for dues gained from donating heads has been slightly altered
to be in line with bonuses matching the humanoid-only restriction.

Cultist:
- Because the Demon Lords are more interested about the heart and the act
of sacrifice than the quality of the soul, cultists will now get full dues
from sacrificing animals and fish.
- Cultists will also gain a small dues bonus to compensate for not being
able to dues things that don't have a heart, including plants, insects and
nonflesh beings.
- Sacrifice: level changes from 4 to 5, duration from 1 to 2 and cost from
10 ep to 5 ep.
- To accommodate the previous change:
    - Sacrifice moves from level 4 to level 5 in the cultist guild.
    - Spirit eye moves from level 5 to level 4 in the cultist guild.
    - Sacrifice moves from level 1 to level 5 in the vodounist guild.

The restriction imposed by guilds that care about soul quality have been
synchronized: Templar, Paladin and Fallen should now follow the same rules
in how much dues the lesser souls are worth and which souls are considered
lesser. Lesser souls are those of nonhumanoid plants, animals, fish,
insects and nonflesh beings who are not of player races. All three guilds
have the same level of restriction and are compensated accordingly.

Templar:
- Last Rites: level changed from 2->5, duration from 1 round to 2 rounds.
- To accommodate the previous change:
    - Last Rites moved from level 2 to level 5 in the confessor guild.
    - Ceremony moved from level 5 to level 2 in the confessor guild.
    - Last Rites moved from level 3 to level 6 in the cleric guild.
    - Mana Blessing moved from level 6 to level 3 in the cleric guild.

Fallen:
- See above.

Paladin:
- Will now gain half dues from duesing good aligned corpses (instead of
negative dues. Negative dues still occur for killing good foes).
- The dues penalty for killing a good aligned foe will be reduced slightly.
- The dues bonus for duesing undead will be extended to all corpses as a
compensation for the above mentioned dues reductions and being penalized
for killing good aligned foes.
- The dragonslaying skill will no longer be necessary to get full dues from
dragon corpses. 

Finally, some outliers have been standardized:

Purifying fire: level changed from 3 to 5. Place to be changed in the
following guilds: Pyromancer (lvl 2->lvl 5) and Mwanga (lvl 2->lvl 5)

Eddy: level changed from 3 to 5, duration changed from 1 to 3 and cost
changed from 2sp to 10 sp. Place adjusted in the following guilds:
Asphyxiamancer (lvl 3->lvl 5)

Hallow slain: Level changed from 7 to 5.

All the corpses should now yield a minimum of 1 due/corpse via affected
skills, as long as the corpse can be duesed with the skill in question to
begin with, is not a player corpse, etc.

~Nerina

A new option has been added to the druid and assassin guild commands.
Druids may now "druid hang <hide/all/etc>" and assassins may now "assassin
pike <head/all/etc>". These commands allow for the quick disposal of dues
items in the field, without the constant shuttling of cargo back to the
advancement rooms of their respective guilds.

Note that of the other corpse-based item dues guilds, ranger now has access
to the field dressing skill and can get dues without items, while
alchemists have dues items of negligible weight and thus need visit their
guilds with far less frequency, so neither has been prioritized for an
equivalent command at this time.

A couple new guild emotes have also been added to assassin and druid
because, eh, I had the files open anyway. . .

-Kereth Midknight

A +/- error was found in the recent changes to paladin dues calcs, causing
paladins actually to get more dues from a corpse the more flappy it was,
instead of progressively less. This has now been corrected. Our apologies
for the inconvenience.

-Kereth Midknight

Another problem was also found in the calculations for the honor lost when
paladins killed a flappy being, causing them to lose 50% more honor than
intended. Thus paladins were both losing too much honor on killing the
flappy mobs as well as getting too much back when they laid their corpse to
rest. This has also been corrected. Our apologies.

There is a known issue that penalties for soulless beings/beings with less
valuable souls apply only to dues recovered for flappy mobs for paladins,
but not to dues lost on death for those mobs, thus paladins will have
overall higher honor loss when killing and duesing flappy soulless beings
(or beings with less prized-by-Sikkar souls) than when killing those flappy
beings whose souls he prizes. A fix to this is forthcoming. If there -are-
any flappy nonhumanoid beings with relevant physiologies out there, expect
not to earn as much back compared to your losses on them for the time
being, should you decide to kill them as a paladin.

-Kereth Midknight

"Shard view stats" should have one extra line added in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

It should no longer be possible to pike heads or hang hides in midair.

-Kereth Midknight

Some adjustments have been made in a number of guilds to accommodate the
new level of the fishing skill. Some reorganizing went down at the same
occasion. The following guilds have been changed:

Asphyxiamancer: Fishing at lvl 2
Fishing moved from lvl 2 to lvl 11.

Bandit: 
Bludgeon moved from lvl 6 to lvl 2.
Bravo Mark moved from lvl 8 to lvl 6.
Observation moved from lvl 11 to lvl 8.
Fishing moved from lvl 2 to lvl 11.

Barbarian:
Lost Fishing from lvl 4.
Foraging moved from lvl 2 to lvl 4.
Gained Brawling to lvl 2.

Berserker: 
Fishing moved from lvl 4 to lvl 11.
Hiking moved from lvl 11 to lvl 4.
Hunting moved from lvl 8 to lvl 11.

Chovihani: 
Tailoring moved from lvl 11 to lvl 14.
Dead eye moved from lvl 14 to lvl 13.
Identify moved from lvl 13 to lvl 7.
Create Charm moved from lvl 7 to lvl 9.
Infravision moved from lvl 9 to lvl 2.
Fishing moved from lvl 2 to lvl 11.
Evil eye moved from lvl 3 to lvl 4.
Targetting moved from lvl 4 to lvl 3.
Botany moved from lvl 3 to lvl 6.
Small throwing moved from lvl 6 to lvl 3.

Darkfey: 
Fishing moved from lvl 1 to lvl 11.
Net throwing moved from lvl 11 to lvl 9.
Bite moved from lvl 9 to lvl 1.
Glamourie moved from lvl 6 to lvl 8.
Brawling moved from lvl 8 to lvl 6.
Whimsical door moved from lvl 12 to lvl 14.
Observation moved from lvl 14 to lvl 12.

Missionary: 
Lost Ward of Blasphemy(lvl 5) from lvl 5.
Detect evil moved from lvl 3 to lvl 5.
Tailoring moved from lvl 11 to lvl 14.
Read magic moved from lvl 14 to lvl 6.
Fishing moved from lvl 6 to lvl 10.
Tent pitching moved from lvl 10 to lvl 11.
Remove curse moved from lvl 11 to lvl 12.
Cooking moved from lvl 12 to lvl 11.

Monk: 
Fishing moved from lvl 2 to lvl 10.  

Raindancer: 
Fishing moved from lvl 3 to lvl 11.
Water Parting Dance moved from lvl 8 to lvl 9.

Shaman: 
Bearskin moved from lvl 1 to lvl 2.
Sylvan tongue moved from lvl 2 to lvl 1.
Foraging moved from lvl 3 to lvl 4.
Botany moved from lvl 4 to lvl 5.
Throwing moved from lvl 5 to lvl 3.
Barracuda Bite moved from lvl 3 to lvl 12.
Howl moved from lvl 12 to lvl 6.
Fishing moved from lvl 6 to lvl 11.
Bulletshaping moved from lvl 11 to lvl 7.
Staff moved from lvl 7 to lvl 3.
Spirit strike moved from lvl 13 to lvl 14.
Animal lore moved from lvl 14 to lvl 13.
Veterinary medicine moved from lvl 9 to lvl 8.
Snake bite moved from lvl 12 to lvl 9.
Create Spirit knife moved from lvl 6 to lvl 12.
Shamanic consciousness moved from lvl 8 to lvl 6.

Squire: 
Fishing moved from lvl 4 to lvl 10.
Tent pitching moved from lvl 10 to lvl 11.
Burnish moved from lvl 10 to lvl 8.
Shield ram moved from lvl 8 to lvl 6.
Sharpen blade moved from lvl 6 to lvl 10.
Mass Grave moved from lvl 9 to lvl 12.

Tani-rahl: 
Aerial combat moved from lvl 13 to lvl 1.
Fishing moved from lvl 1 to lvl 13.

Tohunga: 
Fishing moved from lvl 3 to lvl 14.

~Nerina

Typing "drink" with no arguments while carrying a bucket or a waterskin
should no longer result in a sensitive mind error.

-Kereth Midknight

The paladin honor change caused the paladins to be able to gain honor from
good aligned corpses without wielding their shields. This has been fixed.

Effective at boot or quit/relog.

~Nerina

Missionaries can no longer train the 'fishingtent pitching' skill. Sorry,
my bad.

~Nerina

The explore requirements for joining the following guilds have been reduced
by 35%:

Entertainer
Songsmith
Spellsinger
Harper
Explorer

The explore requirements for advancing in the bard guild have also been
adjusted. See "help guild dues requirements" for more information.

-Kereth Midknight

The effects of the lifeforce link spell should now show up in 'me'.

Wxyz

A misleading section of "help guild dues requirements" has been updated.
The text used to read:

NECROMANCER -
    Necromancer requires you to create, train, and advance your
    creation's tier based on the tier to which it is advanced
    and which skills you train. You also gain dues from using
    the spells siphon life, steal life, and vestige recovery.

It now reads:

NECROMANCER -
    Necromancers earn dues by training and advancing their
    undead creations. The dues earned are based on the tier 
    to which it is advanced and which skills they train. They
    also gain dues from using the spells siphon life, steal 
    life, and vestige recovery.

Hopefully the new text should be less ambiguous. Necromancers gain dues by
training or advancing the tier of their undead. They do not gain dues
simply by creating them.

-Kereth Midknight

Okay, it's been pointed out to me that the helpfile also claims that
necromancers get dues from steal life, which they don't. That has been
corrected as well.

-Kereth Midknight

Joining the bard guild as something other than your first prime should now
require exploring a minimum of 30% of the retroverse, not a minimum
percentage of the retroverse equal to your current level.

-Kereth Midknight

Due to a dropped punctuation mark, the last fix to bard joining made it
temporarily impossible for any non-prime bard to join the guild at all.

Fixed. My bad.

-Kereth Midknight

As has been repeatedly clarified and as is documented in "help luck," the
luck stat has no affect on stat gains per level from a guild room. As has
further been clarified, any references in "help guild room" to "luck" refer
to random chance and the unknowable forces of fate. All references to "your
luck" refer to the player's own luck, not the character's luck stat.

Unlike in the many previous clarifications on this, however, this one is
the first to come at a time when I have write access to the said file (it's
been a while). I have taken the liberty of removing all uses of the word
"luck" from the file.

Let it be known: Seriously, the luck stat seriously has no relevance to
your stat gains. No, really. It doesn't. I mean it.

-Kereth Midknight

The following guilds should no longer attempt to give their members bonuses
to the "summon swarm" spell (no longer in the preceding guilds):

Toghairm apprentice
Toghairm initiate
Toghairm master

The following guilds should no longer attempt to give their members bonuses
to the "summon hornet" spell (from toximancer and not from any of the
preceding guilds):

Toghairm grand master

Bonuses obtained from leveling in these guilds should be more likely to be
relevant to the player in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

There is now one less way for undead necropets to bug out and crash (the
way involves getting hit with temp form abilities).

-Kereth Midknight

Some issues with handling large numbers in the case of people enrolling in
All-The-Skills(tm) at the language training academy have been corrected.
Mostly what you'll notice is that the formatting of the estimate command's
output allows slightly wider columns for Exp than it did previously.

-Kereth Midknight

The abjurer newbie eq has been reviewed and updated. All should have more
robust ids and lighter weights, and one or two items got very slight
description improvements.

-Kereth Midknight

The alchemist newbie eq has received the same treatment. It should be
considerably lighter, easier to target, and the alchemist newbie robe
should no longer be a copy/past description of the abjurer robe that
doesn't even make sense with the slots it covers.

-Kereth Midknight

Bard newbie eq has had a similar treatment. Notably, not all bard eq got
lighter. Some was already appropriate in weight, and the boots actually got
slightly heavier. Overall, it should weigh less than before, however.
Target options are more thorough than before as usual.

-Kereth Midknight

Biomancer newbie eq has also been updated. Basically the same story as with
the bards.

-Kereth Midknight

It should no longer be possible for an assassin to pike heads or a druid to
hang hides while dead.

-Kereth Midknight

Cultist newbie eq has also been updated. Ids should be more robust, and the
items should be an appropriate weight. Note, however, that while the items
are probably lighter overall, the shoes and harness are, individually,
heavier than before.

-Kereth Midknight

The druid newbie eq has also been updated with basically the same changes
that the cultist newbie eq got. I mean, they even have a loincloth and a
wristband and boots and the description of their cloaks is. . . well, you
get the idea. Druid stuff updated.

-Kereth Midknight

General (non-player submitted) townie rumors should no longer contain
references to Hands and Reavers.

-Kereth Midknight

The "leader" and "champion" commands for the assassin guild claimed that
the leader/champ would receive 3 epr, when they were actually receiving 5
dex. This has been corrected. The leader/champ should receive epr from
their position, as advertised.

-Kereth Midknight

Through extensive meditation and introspection, the circle of
monks has been able to separate the parts from the whole.

What was once a mantra,
"student,monk,students,monks,advanced student,advanced students"
"mandala,circle,magic circle,universe,self,symbol"
are now individual lessons to which to meditate upon.

Wxyz

Instrument and Embue commands should now take into
account your chosen instrument in their interactions.

Wxyz with the baglutepipes

The shaman and herbalist guilds should now grant access to the toghairm
grand master tert, not only to the terts before it. This is likely only a
matter of 'choices' command output, website displays, etc, and not actually
an issue of joinability.

-Kereth Midknight

Joining a tertiary guild when you have levels in a guild that could
potentially have given you access to that tertiary but which is not
actually the one you're using to get access to the guild (the latter of
which you have full levels in, but not the prior), should no longer result
in misleading messages when joining the guild.

As a happy side effect, when joining a tertiary guild with secondary guild
requirements, the output will now specify which secondary guild requirement
you filled to get access to the guild.

-Kereth Midknight

Several changes to pathing options, and some supporting changes, have been
made. To wit:

The ghost tert path is now joinable either from the assassin or ranger
prime guilds.
The bandit, barbarian, beserker and gladiator guilds now have access to the
ghost tert path.
The assassin guild now has access to the shih and confessor secondaries
(for the demon hunter and reformed villain archetypes, respectively).
The shih and confessor secondaries now have access to the shadow tert path
(and not the ghost tert path).
The bounty hunter guild no longer has access to the ghost tert path.

The knack for killing skill now allows for legendary ranks for hunter and
stalker ranks, in addition to the allowance for assassination ranks which
existed previously.
The ranger guild gains access to the opportunity skill at level 20.

-Kereth Midknight

On a related note, the guild descriptions for ghosts and the helpfile text
for many of their skills have been updated and partially or completely
rewritten. The contents should no longer be assassin specific, have more
flavor text, and in several cases be less confusing in what they actually
say about game mechanics.

-Kereth Midknight

Ghost initiate should now allow joining from either Full Assassin OR
Full Ranger, not both.  A guild requiring dprime while an interesting
thought, is probably not what we want to do at this time.

Wxyz

As per standard practice, optional freincs are available for people who,
prior to the change, had at least 20 levels in a prime guild whose pathing
was updated. Those seeking to take advantage of this should contact an
available archwizard or above. For easier bookkeeping, please try to use
these within a month of the original change.

-Kereth Midknight

The ranger check room should no longer accept donations of weapon types the
guild does not offer training in.

-Kereth Midknight

The fighter check room should, I -think-, now accept shields.

-Kereth Midknight

The 'ranger check' command should now behave like the equivalent command in
other guilds.

-Kereth Midknight

Guilds with extra joining costs (e.g. scelestus creatura, swashbuckler,
etc) should no longer charge those costs to people attempting to join
without first confirming that the individual is actually qualified to join
the guild.

-Kereth Midknight

Blue vials provided by the Fedayeen shop should no longer be tasteless.
Note that this does not apply to blue vials previously purchased from the
shop.

-Kereth Midknight

Previously only some of the people who are able to digest blood would gain
nutrition from eating still beating hearts, rather than all such people.
This has been corrected, so now all capable of digesting blood will
benefit. For the rest, eating hearts continues to be merely ceremonial.

-Nerina

The following skills have been reorganized in the bandit guild, in order to
better conform match the appropriate place for skills of their level:

Pass without trace (level 14 to 13)
Secret Signal (Level 13 to 14)

-Kereth Midknight

The fighter guild has had the following changes:

Gained 'assess party' at level 12.
Lost 'formation doubleline' at level 12.

-Kereth Midknight

The Druid terts no longer give bonuses to such long ago removed spells as
Triple Death, Web of Life and Rejuvenate. These were replaced by more
relevant bonuses.

-Nerina

The abjurer terts haven't been in the game for a quite few years. I have
hidden them from appearing in the website and helps to stop them from
confusing new players.

-Nerina

The abilities in the Shaman guild have been rearranged to be available
closer to their intended level where possible. Several spells have been
fixed and/or updated to better match their assigned levels.

The following spells have been updated, more info in spell helps:
Bearskin
Slow animal
Hold animal
Snake bite
Alligator thrash
Bear hug
Barracuda bite

The following skill has been updated, more info in skill help:
Veterinary medicine

The following skill was removed from the guild:
Snow survival

The following skill was added to the guild:
Jungle survival

Abilities changing levels in the guild:
Staff from lvl 3 to lvl 2
Animal tongue from lvl 3 to lvl 2
Shamanic ritual from lvl 2 to lvl 3
Veterinary medicine from lvl 8 to lvl 7
Fishing from lvl 11 to lvl 10

Bearskin from lvl 2 to lvl 3
Shamanic consciousness from lvl 6 to vl 5
Blazing acorn from lvl 5 to lvl 6
Eagle wings from lvl 9 to lvl 10
Slow animal from lvl 10 to lvl 9
Create fetish from lvl 10 to lvl 11
Create spirit knife from lvl 12 to lvl 11
Deer speed from lvl 11 to lvl 12
Greater summon minions from lvl 14 to lvl 12
Tree spirit from lvl 13 to lvl 12
Bear hug from lvl 12 to lvl 13
Barracuda bite from lvl 12 to lvl 14

-Nerina

To clarify, only the Abj terts without a joining room in-game were removed
from the website.

Guilds no longer visible are:
Earth chi master
Fire chi master
Heaven chi master
Lake chi master
Mountain chi master
Thunder chi master
Water chi master
Wind chi master

The other terts still have rooms in game and are explorable, but as the
missing terts seem to all be the first in the path, the others may be
removed from the website as well soon, for clarity's sake.

-Nerina

Okay, after a lot of digging and finding horrifyingly confusing stuff, I
can conclude Nerina's posts with the following:

As of boot, there should only be superficially sane looking abjurer terts
appearing on the website, and no terts should any longer appear which don't
actually have guildhalls in game. All still visible terts should be
joinable, even though their skills are offline.

-Kereth Midknight

The Herbalist guild has gained new skills. Additionally, the abilities in
the guild have been rearranged to be available closer to their intended
level where possible. Changes as follows:

Gained new skills:
Carve Spring Ogham to lvl 12
Carve Summer Ogham to lvl 13
Carve Fall Ogham to lvl 14

The following spell was removed from the guild:
Sosel Portal

The following skill was removed from the guild:
Carve Ogham

Skills changing levels in the guild:
Sylvan tongue moves from lvl 3 to lvl 1
Forestry moves from lvl 3 to lvl 4
Botany moves from lvl 4 to lvl 5
Foraging moves from lvl 4 to lvl 5
Create healing poultice moves from lvl 5 to lvl 6
Herb packing moves from lvl 6 to lvl 8 
Scroll lore moves from lvl 6 to lvl 5
Apply poison moves from lvl 7 to lvl 6
Potion tasting moves from lvl 7 to lvl 6
Camouflage moves from lvl 9 to lvl 3
Cooking moves from lvl 12 to lvl 7
Plant lore moves from lvl 7 to lvl 8
Fire building moves from lvl 8 to lvl 9
Herbalism moves from lvl 9 to lvl 8
Remedy moves from lvl 12 to lvl 9

Spells changing levels in the guild:
Warp wood moves from lvl 5 to lvl 4
Blazing acorn moves from  lvl 5 to lvl 7
Plant death moves from lvl 6 to lvl 7
Sharp leaf moved from lvl 9 to lvl 13
Brew healing drink moves from lvl 10 to lvl 12
Minor fire resistance moves from lvl 13 to lvl 10
Minor poison resistence moves from lvl 14 to lvl 11
Tree spirit moves from lvl 13 to lvl 12

-Nerina

The fighter guild has had the following changes:

Lost forced march at level 14.
Gained esprit de corps at level 14.

Fighters with training in forced march will have it automatically convert
to training in esprit de corps at next login.

-Kereth Midknight

The following tert guilds have had their duplicate ability
bonuses cleaned up:
bringer of blood, dragon claw, mantis, mo chi kung fu,
moo gi gong, shikan-ken thunderfist, tiger claw,
white_crane, zanji_shinjinen-ryu

The duplicated bonuses are all counted, just collated
differently in the advancement output, which has now
been corrected.

Wxyz

One should get bonuses to weapon parry instead of shield parry when taking
shinobi terts in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

Okay, the information displayed with the paths/choices command for weapon
terts should now actually be correct, without a hidden requirement of full
levels in a secondary that gives access to that path (for purposes of
sidestepping). Those reading this before the general news post for some
reason can safely disregard the general news post (it didn't take as long
to straighten out as I expected).

-Kereth Midknight

Okay, the information displayed with the paths/choices command for weapon
terts should now actually be correct, without a hidden requirement of full
levels in a secondary that gives access to that path (for purposes of
sidestepping). Those reading this before the general news post for some
reason can safely disregard the general news post (it didn't take as long
to straighten out as I expected).

-Kereth Midknight

Fallen has gained the following skill:
Blade born at lvl 19

Fallen has gained the following spells:
Imbue asphyxiation at lvl 15
Imbue illusion at lvl 16
Asphyxiation wave at lvl 17
Illusion wave at lvl 18

Death Knight has lost the following skill:
Blade born from lvl 14

-Nerina

Kereth wrote:
>Okay, the information displayed with the paths/choices command for weapon
>terts should now actually be correct, without a hidden requirement of full
>levels in a secondary that gives access to that path (for purposes of
>sidestepping). Those reading this before the general news post for some
>reason can safely disregard the general news post (it didn't take as long
>to straighten out as I expected).
>
>
>-Kereth Midknight
>
This fix somehow got rolled back. It has been rolled forward again.

-Kereth Midknight

Some changes to Alchemist as they're easy and standalone.
Alchemist lost the spell Flame Arrow (was at level 13).
The spell Recharge moved from level 14 to level 13.
Alchemist gained the new spell Fundamental Blast at level 14.
Various typos in the guild description fixed.

There are currently no plans to convert training in Flame Arrow over to
Fundamental Blast.

Kereth wrote:
>Kereth wrote:
>>Okay, the information displayed with the paths/choices command for weapon
>>terts should now actually be correct, without a hidden requirement of
full
>>levels in a secondary that gives access to that path (for purposes of
>>sidestepping). Those reading this before the general news post for some
>>reason can safely disregard the general news post (it didn't take as long
>>to straighten out as I expected).
>>
>>
>>-Kereth Midknight
>>
>This fix somehow got rolled back. It has been rolled forward again.
>
>-Kereth Midknight
>
This fix got rolled back yet again. It has once again been rolled forward.

-Kereth Midknight

Hello everyone, sorry to say but there's currently a bug in fundamental
blast. Until we can track it down, because of the potential for abuse we're
going to take it down until we track it down.

Death knight is no longer a joining requirement for blademaster (the
requirement of having five myrmidon terts and Fallen prime remains).

-Kereth Midknight

The brute squad general guild should no longer have identical joining
requirements to the brute squad colonel guild (thus allowing people to skip
the brute squad colonel guild).

-Kereth Midknight

The death knight guild has been reorganized as follows:

Skills shuffled around:
ancient from lvl 7 to lvl 1
consider humanoid from lvl 2 to lvl 1
bashing from lvl 4 to lvl 1
spirit eye from lvl 7 to lvl 3
shield ram from lvl 8 to lvl 4
equestrianism from lvl 6 to lvl 5
offering from lvl 10 to lvl 8
intimidation from lvl 14 to lvl 12

Spells shuffled around:
solidity from lvl 8 to lvl 6
disintegration resistance from lvl 12 to lvl 9
minor protection from good from lvl 9 to lvl 10
summon nightmare from lvl 12 to lvl 14
flames of hell from lvl 13 to lvl 14

Death knight has gained access to following abilities:

Skills gained:
dagger at lvl 1
nightbreed tongue at lvl 2
polearm lvl 3
apply poison at lvl 4
knee at lvl 6
cleave at lvl 7
cavern survival at lvl 7
nightvision at lvl 8

Spells gained:
minor dispel good at lvl 12
siphon lifeforce at lvl 13

Death knight has additionally gained access to Halberdier terts.

-Nerina

The fighter skill loadout has had the following changes:

Blindfighting moved from 20 to 19
Weapon parry moved from 19 to 15
Tumbling attack added at level 16
Wariness added at level 17
Blow conditioning added at level 19
Determination added at level 20

-Kereth Midknight

For clarity, the "help guild items" helpfile should now correctly indicate
that you need 15 levels or more in the merchant guild to use the pouch to
deposit and withdraw funds, rather than just saying you must be "a primary
merchant."

-Kereth Midknight

The psionicist circlet should now be targettable by a wider variety of
options, including "psionicist circlet"

-Kereth Midknight

The alchemist guild check room should now accept held items.

-Kereth Midknight

New command for druid staves: "lituus check"

-Kereth Midknight

Katherine has done some thinking about some of the items
being presented to join her training regimen.  Some have
chosen to take advantage of her generosity and trust that
the items given are worthy.

She decrees that items will be more thoroughly insepcted
in the future.

She also lectures that holding grudges on the past is not
worth the mindspace they take up.

Wxyz

An older fix I made to check rooms to stop them from taking 0 stat or
too-low-stat items unfortunately was still letting such items through if
they had a high enough shop value. This was particularly noticeable with
certain expensive rings that were still being allowed. Most players seem to
have stopped trying after the last fix and purge of those items, but not
all.

Guild check rooms should now soundly reject items with very low or no stat
value, even if they have sufficient gold value. The chief offenders (the
aforementioned rings) have been removed again from all three guilds that
had them in stock (alchemist, bard and mage) and will no longer be
re-accepted.

-Kereth Midknight

Apparently I forgot to tell the bard and alchemist check rooms to save the
changes I made to their inventory yesterday, resulting in all the items I
purged there being returned (the mage check room got additional donations
after my purge, causing it to save). This has been corrected. Additionally,
the two rooms also had friendship rings, which are cheaper versions of the
engagement rings but also have no stats. Those have additionally been
purged from the rooms.

-Kereth Midknight

Guild check rooms should now actually strip colors from the displayed names
of newly donated items. This was supposed to be happening already, but it
wasn't, because of reasons. That's fixed now.

-Kereth Midknight

P.S. Items donated before this fix will remain unaffected.

The following guilds should no longer try to offer their members a chance
to join the Hand guild:

Biomancer
Fallen
Merchant
Psionicist

(Note that this probably wasn't showing up for you anyway)

The following guilds should now allow their members a chance to join the
assassin guild:

Merchant

-Kereth Midknight

The 'shop detailed help' info obtainable in a merchant repairshop should
now include documentation of how shops can be lost through prolonged
neglect. The information is located alongside the existing documentation
about losing shops via reincarnation.

-Kereth Midknight

The paths command with various pugilist terts should no longer falsely
claim that center chi master is a valid secondary requirement.

-Kereth Midknight

the ranger terrains command should now arrange the items in a
more uniform way.

Wxyz

The tohunga secondary should now list "cutthroat veteran" among its
choices, in addition to the other cutthroat terts. Note that this would not
have actually prevented you from joining cutthroat veteran, if you had the
right preceding terts, but it should now display correctly on the relevant
commands and on the website.

-Kereth Midknight

The verb used for the joining quest for the Psionicist guild should no
longer interfere with other commands, preventing the would-be psi from
seeing the correct syntax prompts or fail messages.

-Kereth Midknight

The lifemaster guild has gained the metic surgery skill at level 9.

-Kereth Midknight

The anatomist guild description has been updated very slightly. The guild
has lost the metic surgery skill and gained the panacea skill.

-Kereth Midknight

      From: Kereth
   Subject: Monk
      Date: Wed Apr 28 12:19:10 2021
Reply-Code: 120f
     Lines: 6

The monk guild has gained the following abiliies:

Fearlessness at level 12

-Kereth Midknight