welstar news

This page is an archive of newsposts in the "welstar" 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: Absalom
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Wed May 13 14:56:59 2009
Reply-Code: 484a
     Lines: 2

A buggy exit in the orc caves is now fixed.

      From: Torch
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Wed Jun 10 21:05:49 2009
Reply-Code: 485a
     Lines: 8

Recently, a lone elf has been seen traveling the lands of the retroverse,
seeking for the finest culinary ideas.  He has learned much along the way,
and has returned to Welstar to show what he has learned along the way. 
Rumors still abound that he is still seeking for the best recipies of the
worlds, but for now he has consented to show off his skills.

A Card: Torch

      From: Epikto
   Subject: untitled
      Date: Tue Jan  5 22:58:39 2010
Reply-Code: 486a
     Lines: 7

At boot the gnomish contraption will have less bugs, more ways to interact
with mobs, and the ability to present to individuals.  More to come!

Thank you

pikto.

The guard captains found in Stonehelm should now have an appropriate number
of gems and other items for their level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

Harfang, a creature in Stonehelm but not currently accessible to players,
should now have the appropriate number of gems/other items for its
level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The hearth guards found in Stonehelm should now have an appropriate number
of gems and other items for their level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The highborn dwarfs found in Stonehelm should now have an appropriate
number of gems and other items for their level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

I'm pretty sure the animate dwarven mace isn't in game anywhere, accessible
or no, but just in case it is somewhere (and that somewhere would probably
be associated with Stonehelm), it should now have the appropriate number of
gems and other items for its level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The numerous miners located in an inaccessible area of Stonehelm should now
have an appropriate number of gems and other items for their level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The mummy patricians found in Stonehelm should now have an appropriate
number of gems and other items for their level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The non-mummy patricians found in Stonehelm should now also have an
appropriate number of gems and other items for their level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The animate dwarven platemail that is definitely located in an accesible
part of Stonehelm should now have an appropriate number of gems and other
items for its level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

Raklish Ironsoul, also definitely located in an accesible part of
Stonehelm, should now have an appropriate number of gems and other items
for his level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The rapid response riders, sleeping and non-, as well as their rompos,
located in Stonehelm, should now have an appropriate number of gems and
other items for their levels/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The dwarven sharpshooters that are definitely located in an accesible part
of Stonehelm should now have an appropriate number of gems and other items
for their levels/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

A number of standard equipment items used by the run of the mill dwarves in
Stonehelm should now be appraised by shops in a way that more accurately
reflects their actual quality.

-Kereth Midknight

The animate dwarven round shield that is located in Stonehelm should now
have an appropriate number of gems and other items for its level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

Silfax the Miner, located in an inaccessible area of Stonehelm, should now
have an appropriate number of gems and other items for his level/etc. He
should also no longer give BAD_ITEM messages when loading.

-Kereth Midknight

Several aspects of Harfang's code should no longer bug out under certain
conditions. Others should be more meaningful.

-Kereth Midknight

(Harfang is still in an inaccessible part of Stonehelm)

The vermin slayers in Stonehelm should now have an appropriate number of
gems and other items for their levels/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The animate dwarven warhammer in Stonehelm should now have an appropriate
number of gems and other items for its level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

The warden in Stonehelm should now have an appropriate number of gems and
other items for his level/etc.

-Kereth Midknight

Some previously inaccessible parts of Stonehelm should no longer be so.
Furthermore, a few unpopulated parts of the area should now actually see
some light foot traffic.

-Kereth Midknight

Silfax the Miner should no longer claim to be ridden by Harfang if Harfang
is either dead or not present.

-Kereth Midknight

A certain syntax quest in tsoda pools has been cleaned up.  It should now
be significantly easier to follow the prompts to jump off the tree branch.

-Rita

The sundial by Keystone had some dark magic on it that was allowing it to
work even when the sun wasn't visible.  (Like at night, or during an
eclipse.)  That dark magic has been removed, and put into a small box with
the label "DO NOT OPEN" where it will be safe forever.

-Rita

A certain "pale corpse" in Charthur will no longer show up as "He is a ." 
This fix will actually affect various other undead mobs that didn't have
their race set in a specific way, but this one was the one that led me to
fixing them.  (And I don't really have a way to list out all of the mobs
that this affects.)

-Rita

The manual line wrapping has been removed from Ta'raggs.

-Rita

With the exception of one room emote in Bosedrius' area, the Welstar typo
reps have been cleared out.

-Rita

Spartans bay petshop pets have been updated to use the latest version of
the pet code. The changes on the player end should be minor, but some typos
have been fixed and you should see some difference in the sheep pet
randomization. If anything is amiss, please rep it accordingly.

~Nerina

Petshop pets had a bug that was marking them as "valueless".  My bad on
that one.

-Rita

It should no longer be possible to use a certain room to repeatedly
duplicate every item you own ad nauseum.

-Kereth Midknight

Spiritus has been converted to use standard present code.

~Nerina

Mother Angelic has been cleaned up a bit. Among other things, she shouldn't
refer herself as 'Saint Tresca' anymore.

~Nerina

Master of the Hunt has been converted to use standard present code.

~Nerina

Those exiting the phantom outpost through the wrong door should no longer
find themselves in an alternate reality version of the necromancer college
overworld.

-Kereth Midknight

The following items have received minor stat updates to comply with revised
equipment standards.

ring of black misfortune
Flesh focus of Stharlhathar
Shel, shield of the Avatar
a potato sack
a blackened badge
Gambler's golden glove

~Nerina

You shouldn't be blinded by the sun rise from the bottom of
the welstarian sea.  Amongst other sights you shouldn't
have seen.

Wxyz

The slitted arrows from a certain outlaw base will no longer be double the
usual weight.

-Rita

It should no longer be impossible to view the names of items you created in
the advanced tailor shop in Spartan's Bay if your name happens to end in x.

Attempting to use the 'wardrobe store' command without other arguments
should no longer give a sensitive mind error.

-Kereth Midknight

Wemics ("body of a lion and where a head on a lion would normally be there
is the upper body of a man") were not catfolk, per se, but despite being
nonhumanoid some code would treat them as such, creating odd interactions
between assassination and hunter ranks. There has also been regular bugreps
about "non-humanoid catfolk", even though their descs explain why they're
not humanoids. To avoid further confusion, the wemics now have a race of
their own, and do not count as catfolk anymore.

~Nerina

The felinnaurs of Welstar have asserted their rights to maintaining of
their own identity. From henceforth, they will no longer be known by the
label granted by their colonial oppressors. The ever-righteous residents of
Abarack and Keystone, the Dwarfs of Stonehelm, the oggres of the mountain.
. . all these may have infringed upon their lands, demeaned their culture
and refused to bring them sufficient candy. . . but they would not take
their name!

They are W***** no longer! Now, from heneforth, and retroactively forever
before, they are only Felinnaur!

-Kereth Midknight

(P.S. They're also humanoid to match the body type of similarly shaped
races, such as centaurs)

The phantoms have been cleaned up, their physiologies have been made more
uniform, their loot has been reviewed and ammo supplies expanded. And
they're slightly more numerous than before.

~Nerina

Aloysius the merchant should be less oblivious to being the
target of interactions.

Wxyz

The golden brown french fries sometimes found on Welstar should no longer
be raw, nor should they be completely worthless when sold to a shop.

-Kereth Midknight

Dead squirrels, when found on Welstar, should weigh as much as dead
squirrels.

-Kereth Midknight

Yonnea, a stylish and pet-loving young lady, has opened a beauty salon in
Spartan's Bay. She's offering a selection of beauty packages for pet owners
who wish to pamper their (vanity) pets. If a makeover isn't your pet's
thing, she's also selling a few clothing accessories your pet might like to
wear.

Happy shopping!
~Nerina

The dead boars and dead chickens sometimes found on Welstar have been
updated to reflect similar changes to those experienced by their Perdow
counterparts.

-Kereth Midknight

The dead doves and dead ducks sometimes found on Welstar have been updated
to have more detailed descriptions, as well as more accurate weights and
nutritional values.

-Kereth Midknight

The dead geese and dead grouses sometimes found on Welstar have been
updated very slightly, mostly just by way of code cleanup and to stop their
descriptions from wrapping funny.

-Kereth Midknight

The dead lambs and dead pheasants sometimes found on Welstar have been
updated. The lambs have a better description, and the pheasants weigh more
than 100 grams and have more nutritional value to match.

-Kereth Midknight

The following dead animals on Welstar have been reviewed and updated where
appropriate:

Rabbits, squirrels, turkeys, piglets, bears, beavers, hedgehogs, bats,
stags, foxes, grasshoppers, moles, mice, owls and ravens.

Most of these are much more recent additions to the Welstar menu by Avarice
and needed much less attention. Most notable changes are the larger animals
gaining drastically increased nutritional value.

-Kereth Midknight

Certain marching suits of armor were being set as nonhumanoid xodars in a
way that was entirely accidental. This has now been corrected. They should
be as humanoid as their description implies.

-Kereth Midknight

Due to the constant* fear of uruk invasion, members of the ruling class of
Keystone opted to increase the defenses on their city gates, assigning
additional guards to watch these entrances. Unfortunately, these additional
guards did not have the special training usually given to gate guards.

Among other problems, this meant that the usual rules about warning
bypassers who attempted to enter the city with weapons drawn, rather than
attacking them on sight, were not being communicated to the new guards.
This problem has been addressed by temporarily reassigning the less trained
guards until such a time that better training regimens can be implemented.

-Kereth Midknight

* Whether these fears are wholly rational has been a constant point of
debate in Keystonian politics.

Since the dues code has been fixed, some monsters that didn't use to give
dues have started doing so. In some areas, the wizard who coded it noticed
that the code wasn't working and applied a workaround. Mobs in those areas
have been giving out double dues since the original code was fixed (by
Kereth, a little while ago). One of those areas has been the village of
Chaplin. This has been corrected and the spirits of the villagers once
again give out the dues originally intended.

Additionally some information previously missing from the area check has
been added.

~Nerina

"A small grey key" should now be targettable as "small key", "gray key",
"grey key", "small grey key" and "small gray key". It should no longer be
targettable as "large key", "black key" or "large black key".

-Kereth Midknight

The cherubfish and winged salmon sometimes found on Welstar should have
much more significant nutritional values in the future. This is good news,
since the cherubfish has been "a staple of the Welstarian diet, and the
Sikkarian Church considers the fish a boon from the Lightbringer to feed
His faithful." The clergy need no longer debate the theological
implications of their deity calling his flock to live off something with
roughly a third the nutrient density of cardboard.

-Kereth Midknight

The brook trout and speckled catfish sometimes found on Welstar should have
vastly higher nutritional value in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

The trudger foul and spawning salmon sometimes found on Welstar should have
significantly higher nutritional value in the future. Since the trudger
foul only weigh about a hundred grams each, however, you may not want to
expect to much, but the value should be a little more obviously nonzero.

-Kereth Midknight

The ropefish and horned swampdwellers sometimes found on Welstar should
have significantly higher nutritional value in the future. That is, if you
should decide to actually eat one of them.

-Kereth Midknight

The carp and needle fish sometimes found on Welstar should have vastly
higher nutritional value in the future.

The lesser spotted mudsuckers and horned swamp eels sometimes found on
Welstar should have significantly higher nutritional values in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

The toad gobblers and swamp lungfish sometimes found on Welstar should have
vastly higher nutritional values in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

Several more fish, including the gold spotted pike, the queen triggerfish
and the yellowtail amberjack, commonly found on Welstar should have vastly
higher nutritional values in the future. Furthermore the market value of
several fish, including the basking shark, the salmon and the blue dolphin,
should be significantly higher* in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

* Actual price may vary based on unstated factors.

A number of fish native to Welstar have been updated, including:

smalltooth sawfish
yellowtail amberjack
diver fish
luminus
tube fish
goggle fish
goblin shark
tuna
humpback angler
umbrellamouth gulper
viperfish
ogrefish

In each case, either the nutritional value or the market value increased
dramatically, unless maybe I accidentally put a fish or two on that list
that didn't need updating. If I did, those particular fish didn't change,
but the rest did.

-Kereth Midknight

The following fish, sometimes found on Welstar, have all had their
nutritional values significantly increased:

Diamond killifish
Central stoneroller
Eastern mudminnow
Threespine stickleback
Gizzard shad
Alewife
Blueback
White perch
Striped bass

This concludes the work on Welstar fish providable by the fishing skill.

-Kereth Midknight

The mini magic wardrobe[RP] is intended to store only [RP] patterns created
by the Advanced RP store. Once you create a pattern with the store, you can
use the wardrobe to create the item. "Storing" the item is nothing more
than deleting it (item, not pattern). Only way to add new patterns to the
wardrobe is to create them with the Advanced RP store.

The mini magic wardrobe[RP] was able to "store" special items like face
paints and butterflies. This was a bug and has been fixed. A way to store
the face paints was requested, and they can now be chested normally. The
butterflies can still be stored in the threadable jars like before.

~Nerina

Clothing worn by vanity pets should once again be visible when looking at
the pets.

-Kereth Midknight

The tasseled net (formerly "tassled net") has been updated. The messages
should wrap more cleanly, there should be fewer typos, the checks on the
special should run more reliably, and the special attack should now show
damage numbers and affect the wielder's dpr. Note that the rates of procs
on different special effects have been tweaked slightly to keep the
special's power in line with the amount that was allocated to it.

-Kereth Midknight

Stharlhathar had a a bug that was causing him to not die properly if his
torso or tail hadn't been attacked.  While fixing that bug, I found what
appeared to be a bug if he were to escape death.  Escaping death would
cause his other parts to disappear, and he would consequently get very
confused.  I make no claims to how often or if he's even able to escape
death, but doing so should at least not require wiz intervention.

-Rita "I swear I'm still around" Wildfire

A certain pair of goggles should have much more robust targeting options in
the future, and a certain leather finger tab should have a more realistic
weight.

-Kereth Midknight

The Spartan's Bay General Store should be slightly better stocked in the
future, favoring goods relevant to local industry.

-Kereth Midknight

Through the careful and delicate application of a baseball bat to the face,
Stharlhathar has been taught that sometimes it's better to die.

-Rita

The outdoor rooms in the outlaws area should now have an actual terrain
setting. Furthermore, the pond has a surface and a set depth, rather than
being a column of water reaching up to the heavens and down eternally into
the depths of existence, and the areacheck data has been updated and set
appropriately.

-Kereth Midknight

A grim black helm should no longer give the wearer a -2 penalty to the
non-existent "CHA" stat.

-Kereth Midknight

The streets of Mosyevir should now have a valid terrain setting.

-Kereth Midknight

The few outdoor rooms in the Smuggler's Lair area on Welstar should now
have an appropriate terrain setting applied.

-Kereth Midknight

The Mt Molurn sub-area (between Palom Plains and the Smuggler's Lair)
should now also have correct terrain settings on each of its rooms.

-Kereth Midknight

Okay, apparently they already all had terrain settings. The settings should
be slightly more accurate now.

-Kereth Midknight

The Felinnaur Chieftain and Felinnaur Shaman have been meeting together for
a long, long time now. So long, in fact, that they have finally overcome
some of their more serious differences. As such, they should be on
friendlier terms. They will no longer ignore one another's plight, when
either is in danger, nor should they be prone to "accidentally" hitting one
another with area spells.

Likewise, the felinnaurs in general will be less cold hearted about the
fates of their women and children. Those who attack the cubs or females
while other felinnaurs are present will no longer have their aggression
ignored.

-Kereth Midknight

Ghostly arrows should no longer get an extra "a" in their names when
enchanged, going from "a pile of 50 ghostly arrows" to "a pile of 50 harm a
ghostly arrows" (now becoming just "a pile of 50 harm ghostly arrows").
Likewise, the "a" should no longer be required when targetting the arrows.

-Kereth Midknight

The sailors around Spartan's Bay should now actually dress the part.

With, er, varying degrees of success.

-Kereth Midknight

Thanks to the THEYMADEME party for bringing to our
attention that you could bypass most of the quest
just by pretending you had finished it.  It should
now require completing first.  The quest itself has
some issues, so I suspect it will be adjusted to be
more sane later rather than sooner.

Thanks again,
Wxyz

The newbie-statue on Welstar should now determine whether a given person
can enter them based on that individual's level, not the level of the
person who entered the movement command. High level parties can no longer
use the newbie transport by having a newbie lead them through it.

-Kereth Midknight

Vanity pet clothes no longer lose their threading when the pet wearing them
is dismissed and resummoned. Additionally the bug causing vanity pets to
display sensitive mind error when summoned has been fixed.

-Nerina

The camp refuge area has a collection of items.
There should now be less syntax quest involved in their use.

As of boot or sooner as always.

Wxyz

The Barrow Downs appear to have been missed in the level lock updates of
yestermonths. Their lock has been adjusted from 20 to 30.

-Kereth Midknight

Various animals from a certain place, with race settings including
"rouncey," "courser," "jennet," "destrier" and "palfrey," should now all
have the common race setting of "horse."

-Kereth Midknight

On a related note, certain dogs are no longer targettable as "horse."

-Kereth Midknight

The old bug that once caused necromancer undead to endlessly accumulate
more stats (for combat checks only) was also causing the custodian of the
course to endlessly accumulate stats (for all purposes). Since the
custodian is an unattackable mob, this mostly meant that it was getting
sexier and sexier every day, albeit at a very gradual pace.

This has been fixed. The custodians stats, including its charisma, should
remain within mortal bounds in the future.

-Kereth Midknight

A certain ballista should now fire more reliably, give the user more
control over what they load it with, actually use up its ammo and no longer
complain about an inability to destroy guilds, various planets, backbones,
etc, when it successfully fires.

-Kereth Midknight

A certain location that would allow non-flying people to go up, only to
make them fall down again as they were in midair and unable to fly, should
no longer do so.

-Kereth Midknight

Trying to use the Keystone Office to check the castle deeds for Raji should
no longer result in a sensitive mind error.

-Kereth Midknight

The check for already being a warlord for purposes of gaining entrance to a
certain location should now not be exclusively applied to warlord private.
Anyone who has any membership in any warlord tert should be equally
recognized as a warlord, even if they skipped the first tert.

-Kereth Midknight

Due to a quirk of programming, a certain unusual but not unheard of method
for marking a room as indoors would result in the rooms being "outdoor"
sized for purposes of size checks, claustrophobia/agoraphobia, etc. This
has now been corrected. Various unintentionally large indoor areas should
have returned to a more normal indoor area size.

This includes at least Ta'ragg's Fortress.

-Kereth Midknight

A certain exit in a certain castle area should no longer conflict with a
command name, making the command unusable in that room.

-Kereth Midknight