Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Hello Istarians! We’ve been hard at work with our second update for the year of 2020 and we’re excited to announce what we have in store! These changes are in the final stages of testing, and we hope to release them sooner than later. We’re too excited not to share, though, so we’re releasing our notes early!
General
- Portliness and muscularity now have functions.
- Portliness increases your defense, but lowers your attack speed. You require more food to decrease death point timers.
- Muscularity increases your damage, but you must obtain and drink protein shakes to maintain your visage.
- Dragons and Sslik can now embark on the RoG (Rite of Gender) quest to obtain a defined gender. Dimorphism is included.
- Eating food which has been in a tavern for too long might give you a food poisoning debuff, making it important to make fresh food.
- The heat of Dralk will now cause bipeds to take intense damage unless wearing a Dragonscale Cloak.
- Standing in Lantenal’s lava pool will now result in him turning hostile.
- Gifted who stand too near the Tazoon whirlpool for too long will become irradiated and emit light for a short period.
- You now have to pay rent to the Empire on your vault. Defaulting may result in the Empire's tax collectors paying you a visit ingame - this provides a necessary coin sink.
- An epic version of Polymorph Splash Potions is now available - Polymorph Wave. These potions’ effects are city-wide and do not require grouping. Requires epic materials.
- Areas outside of cities, as they are not able to be monitored by the Empire, now allow PvP.
Dragons
- Dragon flight now has been given many improvements.
- You now have a stamina bar that you must refresh by landing and resting at a 2:1 ratio of rest time to flight time.
Losing stamina mid-flight results in crashing to the ground and causing fall damage. The higher your portliness, the more damage! - Hatchlings can now fly, but their flight times vary randomly with no set pattern due to unstable magic.
- Bashing into things while flying has a chance to do damage. Too much damage might result in becoming injured and unable to fly. This can be healed by visiting a mender in a city.
- Dragons may now consume raw meat and gain buffs in return. Consuming a raw Dryad gives a bonus to magic damage for one hour. Think twice before resurrecting your allies.
- Higher hoard levels now have an inverse effect on your speed. You want to sit and brood on your large hoard, not go out adventuring and leaving it undefended. To make it easier to manage your hoard, hoard decay has been reintroduced.
- Flying in stormy areas now has a chance for you to be hit by lightning and killed instantly.
Bipeds
- Gnomes now have twice the nutritional value.
- Sslik can complete a quest to obtain their own reverse-khutit “half-dragon” form.
- Saris can now consume the drug Catnip, giving them immense combat boosts. However, they can go into withdrawal, requiring them to buy more catnip. Being found under the influence by guards can result in being charged with a CUI (cat under the influence).
- Dryads can now fly, but in return, can be killed immediately by passing dragon wings or crushed underfoot by other larger races when grounded.
- Dwarves have gained the passive “Love of Treasure” and can no longer sell or trade with anyone. In return, they have gained access to the Hoard mechanic, which has no gameplay function.
- Half-Giants have rediscovered their "Love of the Sea" and gain bonuses while in water, but penalties on land.
- Buildings that are not linked to your race will grant your character a “Feeling Out of Place” debuff when placed on your plot, resulting in a decrease in focus.
- New Plot Decor
- Coin sink - it has hot and cold faucets and a handy drain into which you can toss your loose change.
- Outhouse - Will result in a ‘Feeling Light’ buff when used.
- Tiny House - Comes with tiny storage.
- Guard Dog - Prevents other players from entering your plot without permission.
- Garden Gnome - Requires monthly salary.
Adventure
- All archery classes now require the use of crafted arrows. Fletcher is required to craft them, they are attuned, and do not stack.
- Spearman ability ‘Throw Spear’ now has a 50% chance of consuming your weapon.
- Characters in groups with other characters much higher level than them now results in negative experience gain.
- Bipeds can no longer join more than five classes at once to balance them against Dragons.
- Repeatedly killing a certain monster has a chance to turn it into your "Nemesis" - a nemesis monster will track you no matter where you go in the world, appearing when you least expect it in a significantly buffed form. Vary your farming targets to avoid retribution!
- Blighted equipment is now significantly more powerful, but also slowly corrupts you, reaching full corruption will result in your character attacking allies!
Craft
- Raw materials now can be refined into ten of the final material. In return, you have a chance of breaking finalized items when crafting, deleting your materials.
- Experience gain in crafting classes is now dependent on rating like adventuring classes: the more classes you learn and master, the less experience easier materials give.
- Player-crafted items are now exceptionally more powerful, but in return, formulas are now single-use.
- Tools will now have a hidden durability meter and can break after multiple uses.
Quests
- Dragons’ RoP (Rite of Passage) quest will now be locked after a few hours of play every day. The quest will now take at least a week to complete to truly give the immersive experience.
- Upon completing the Plundered Tombs questline, the ghosts of the tombs will now occasionally “haunt” your character for desecrating them.
- Various settlements, like New Trismus, now have daily defend questlines that can result in the settlement falling if not completed by enough players.
- New Quest: The End of Eternity: A quest for end-tier characters who have nothing to do anymore as they search for a way to renounce the Gift and finally die - successful players may encounter a power greater than they ever knew. Unsuccessful ones may lose their characters!
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
lol...
My favorite:
Quote:
Flying in stormy areas now has a chance for you to be hit by lightning and killed instantly.
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
PLEASE IMPLEMENT ALL THESE.
- specially the dragons ones. Seriously.
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
You know, some of these actually sounded reasonable. I just skimmed it the first time and didn't realize it was a joke, then I actually read everything and I'm still stinging from the disappointment... :(
EDIT:
For clarity, most of the first paragraph seemed reasonable at first glance, as well as a few other things peppered throughout. I guess I just got unlucky and read all of the reasonabe things first and missed all the blatant jokes on my initial skimming.
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
[*]New Quest: The End of Eternity: A quest for end-tier characters who have nothing to do anymore as they search for a way to renounce the Gift and finally die - successful players may encounter a power greater than they ever knew. Unsuccessful ones may lose their characters!
A truly Epic questline.
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Why do there jokes always half to be great suggestions !!!
I still want peds to be able to ride dragons and dragons be able to "throw" there riders off
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Oookay, so I've read all of it and I would like to give my opinion about some of the stuff that is being mentioned because I think that the staff is actually curious about our opinion aside of just saying "Oh sounds cool!" I won't be commenting all of it, if I don't mention something it's because it's not necessary or I dunno what to think of it just yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
General
[LIST][*]Portliness and muscularity now have functions.
- Portliness increases your defense, but lowers your attack speed. You require more food to decrease death point timers.
- Muscularity increases your damage, but you must obtain and drink protein shakes to maintain your visage.
This one sounds like fun and it gives a little bit of a realistic feel to actually how Dragons look and feel at the same time. I'm on board for this one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
General
- Dragons and Sslik can now embark on the RoG (Rite of Gender) quest to obtain a defined gender. Dimorphism is included.
So, people have been asking for Dragons to be able to choose a gender on character creation and it is neat that it is being finally added tho I don't really get it why it has to be a quest and not just a character creation tab function.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
General
- Eating food which has been in a tavern for too long might give you a food poisoning debuff, making it important to make fresh food.
Again, it gives a realistic touch to the game content but I don't know how this one will go along in the long run and mainly on Order or Blight that isn't as active as Chaos on a daily basis but if it is only Tavern food going bad and it doesn't affect your inventory/vault/connie food then it might not be as impactful to the community.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
General
- The heat of Dralk will now cause bipeds to take intense damage unless wearing a Dragonscale Cloak.
Oh boy, my kitty's paws will suddenly be hot! Peds don't tend to cross Dralk that often but still if the Cloak can have techs integrated and it's reasonable to craft I'm cool with it, giving Dergies some special place for themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
General
- Standing in Lantenal’s lava pool will now result in him turning hostile.
Well, I think some unsuspected hatchies will become future snacks. Nice gaf, I love it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
General
- You now have to pay rent to the Empire on your vault. Defaulting may result in the Empire's tax collectors paying you a visit ingame - this provides a necessary coin sink.
Reasonable, this will maybe hurt a little people that are playing idle most of the time or just roleplaying and not questing much but unless it is an insane tax you gotta pay like 1g a week then I don't think there will be a problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
General
- Areas outside of cities, as they are not able to be monitored by the Empire, now allow PvP.
When I first read this I was like, oh snap.. We gon' die! But fortunately, most of the Istarian community is nice and I don't think there will be that many a-holes around. Altho, what I'm most worried is that there needs to be some kind of penalty or something to high-level folk killing newbies. I've seen this happen in multiple games veterans preying on newcomers to have fun and annoy and eventually making the new people leave the game. I'm just scared some douchebag comes along and starts killing random hatchies on Pratt's Pond or near Kion just for the heck of it making the few newcomers we get, get frustrated and leave. I think it would only be fair that you could kill anyone regardless of the Lv, but a penalty be added for players say Lv100 killing someone that's less than 40 or so. Either be it getting killed, get cursed for like an hour or two of not being able to do any action or something like that to decrease the appetite for high levels praying on unsuspected newcomers that have no idea wtf is even going on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Dragons
[LIST][*]Dragon flight now has been given many improvements.
- You now have a stamina bar that you must refresh by landing and resting at a 2:1 ratio of rest time to flight time.
Losing stamina mid-flight results in crashing to the ground and causing fall damage. The higher your portliness, the more damage!
Excuse me? This one I'm not completly sure it will be pleasurable since I see a few issues with this. Istaria is known mainly for being basically the only game in which you can be a dragon and fly anywhere you wanna, as high as you wanna, as long as you wanna. Taking this essential thing away feels like it could break a pillar that sustains Istaria in a bad way. You see, I don't know how big the stamina bar will be, but speculating the 2:1 ratio will it be like 5 min of flight = 10 min rest? Also, can't look past that fall damage thing, this could be devastating if in need of escaping of something and the bar being empty or having to suddently leave mid flight and your dragon will be dead when you come back.
I'm sorry but even tho some realism wants to be added, taking the free flight aspect from the game feels like it is being ruined and I'm not on board.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Dragons
- Hatchlings can now fly, but their flight times vary randomly with no set pattern due to unstable magic.
- Bashing into things while flying has a chance to do damage. Too much damage might result in becoming injured and unable to fly. This can be healed by visiting a mender in a city.
Regarding the hatchling flight, I'm excited for it, it will be really fun to play randomly with the flights!
As for the bashing into things and taking damage, I'm on board with it. I think if only this was added and not the Flight Stamina thing, it would make it far more entertaning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Dragons
- Dragons may now consume raw meat and gain buffs in return. Consuming a raw Dryad gives a bonus to magic damage for one hour. Think twice before resurrecting your allies.
Ok, so dragons now will have the ability to finaly eat more than crystals. I love it! We need a special Gnome dish tho.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Dragons
- Higher hoard levels now have an inverse effect on your speed. You want to sit and brood on your large hoard, not go out adventuring and leaving it undefended. To make it easier to manage your hoard, hoard decay has been reintroduced.
So the more hoard you got the less speed you get? Hmm, I just hope that the speed remains as you keep your optimal Hoard=Damage value and not get slowed when you get there. I'm ok with maintaining the Hoard value on optimal and getting slower on overfeeding. But, if the optimal Hoard value makes you slower, having to trade Speed over Damage or vice versa, I dunno.. Doesn't seem fair.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Dragons
- Flying in stormy areas now has a chance for you to be hit by lightning and killed instantly.
Ok, so no more flying at any Deadland.. I just hope the % of this happening is low because imagine the frustration of trying to accomplish something on a Deadland and dying over and over again due to storm. It's a neat touch tho! We need a forecast tab to tell us what kind of weather are we flying through and what are the hazards haha
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Bipeds
- Saris can now consume the drug Catnip, giving them immense combat boosts. However, they can go into withdrawal, requiring them to buy more catnip. Being found under the influence by guards can result in being charged with a CUI (cat under the influence).
My meow meow will be happy, not my neighbors over at Scorpion tho.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Bipeds
- Dryads can now fly, but in return, can be killed immediately by passing dragon wings or crushed underfoot by other larger races when grounded.
I like this dynamic integration of evading your neighbor but I just hope the targeting of the model against model bumping is optimal because otherwise being hit by an invisible or lagged dragon turning around would be a bit irritating, more so when I see constantly how my dragon turns around or arrives next to my ped and on my other screen client my dragon lags behind or suddenly appear out of nowhere. The movements need to be more polished between all players to be seen in real-time or else evading a dragon will be impossible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Bipeds
- Dwarves have gained the passive “Love of Treasure” and can no longer sell or trade with anyone. In return, they have gained access to the Hoard mechanic, which has no gameplay function.
Goodbye Dwarve players, you're now on your own.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Bipeds
- Buildings that are not linked to your race will grant your character a “Feeling Out of Place” debuff when placed on your plot, resulting in a decrease in focus.
Question, does it mean Focus like the Stat or Focus as in something else? Just curious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Bipeds
- Guard Dog - Prevents other players from entering your plot without permission.
I suddenly feel there will be a thousand dogs everywhere. I wish you could put a dog on the entrance of your lair too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Adventure
- All archery classes now require the use of crafted arrows. Fletcher is required to craft them, they are attuned, and do not stack.
Does this mean that there will be crafted bundles of say 50 or so and those cannot be stacked to say make a stack of 100? Or that the individual arrows will take entirely your inventory with 1 by 1 arrow because that would be impossible to play.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Adventure
- Spearman ability ‘Throw Spear’ now has a 50% chance of consuming your weapon.
Either don't use this skill with teched/epic spears or just don't use the skill at all. Hope the damage is worth the risk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Adventure
- Characters in groups with other characters much higher level than them now results in negative experience gain.
Do the high-level influence group members have to be nearby for this to take effect or just having some chatter people on another map can slow your experience regardless if they're chilling at Dralk and you're at Acul? I hope it affects only nearby group members.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Adventure
- Repeatedly killing a certain monster has a chance to turn it into your "Nemesis" - a nemesis monster will track you no matter where you go in the world, appearing when you least expect it in a significantly buffed form. Vary your farming targets to avoid retribution!
Oh-My-God. YES! Imagine someone only logging in to do epic hunting and spawning a random SoG in the middle of a town. Hilarious!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Adventure
- Blighted equipment is now significantly more powerful, but also slowly corrupts you, reaching full corruption will result in your character attacking allies!
Will there be like a blighted meter your can see how far you've gone before you're taken over? How do you remove the corruption to start from 0? Taking the equipment off? Will this happen in towns or only on PvP enabled zones outside? How long does the corruption last for? SO MANY QUESTIONS! But I think this is a cool way of integrating some roleplay essences to the game too for those who like to play Blighted, now you can truly become one!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Craft
- Raw materials now can be refined into ten of the final material. In return, you have a chance of breaking finalized items when crafting, deleting your materials.
I don't get what does this means. Does it mean you can try to make more out of the resources you got on risk of not getting anything in the end? I'm a little confused.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Craft
- Experience gain in crafting classes is now dependent on rating like adventuring classes: the more classes you learn and master, the less experience easier materials give.
So basically the more schools you get to 100 you eventually won't be able to just do bars or bricks for the other schools to lvl up. Got it. As if it wasn't hard enough but I mean it will make you appreciate a bit more what you accomplished! Besides, 3rd hand crafty work isn't that difficult anyhow. Just means some schools will be trickier than others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Craft
- Player-crafted items are now exceptionally more powerful, but in return, formulas are now single-use.
Ok this one has me very confused. You already use single-use formulas to learn the thing you wanna do, right? Does this mean, that every time I wanna do a scale, I will have to get the formula again and again? What about the epic formulas? And tools?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Craft
- Tools will now have a hidden durability meter and can break after multiple uses.
Is there a way to repair them or they just disappear for good? Because this will be particularly troubling if you have cogs or techs in the tools and they just disappear along with the tech or cog. I think just being unable to use the item that got 0 durabilities could be repaired again would be much better than just disappear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Craft
- Dragons’ RoP (Rite of Passage) quest will now be locked after a few hours of play every day. The quest will now take at least a week to complete to truly give the immersive experience.
No, just... No. Why is this necessary? I mean, the RoP isn't that hard as ARoP but still, you have the wait time and now more wait time. At least a week to complete? I'm not really liking this idea. I'd be ok if it was that you can only do one part of the questline (say 1) per 2 hours or something so you'd have to wait 2h between completing 1 and 2 but a week? I'm not a fan of this. Doing this on ARoP would make way more sense than RoP since ARoP is a true challenge on every step with powerfull kills to do and such.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Quests
- Various settlements, like New Trismus, now have daily defend questlines that can result in the settlement falling if not completed by enough players.
Again I like the idea of realistic content like this, but yet again I have to say Blight and Order will not be happy about this due to less people. So towns will be overrun all the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AmonGwareth
Quests
- New Quest: The End of Eternity: A quest for end-tier characters who have nothing to do anymore as they search for a way to renounce the Gift and finally die - successful players may encounter a power greater than they ever knew. Unsuccessful ones may lose their characters!
Oh yes, I wonder who's gonna be the first one to try? Also, if you lose a character, maybe add like a token you can buy in Cash to recover character? So it isn't like forever forever gone if you want to recover it after failing. I mean a token like the character appearance change and such.
And I'm done. Well these are my questions and opinions I got about these, I'd only really remove 2 and that's the RoP waiting time and the Flight Limitation. Do the crash against obstacles or players to take damage or on hard landing, slowing down with hoard but don't take the free flight away. It will be horrible for everyone.
Cheers!
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Shazo
Oookay, so I've read all of it and I would like to give my opinion about some of the stuff that is being mentioned because I think that the staff is actually curious about our opinion aside of just saying "Oh sounds cool!" I won't be commenting all of it, if I don't mention something it's because it's not necessary or I dunno what to think of it just yet.
!
I think/hope you know this is an April's Fools post :p (because some of your responses sound as if you think this will actually happen, but the first one seems to say you do know it's an April's Fools post :P) but indeed if I were to take it seriously:
1 or 2 I like too, mainly the Nemesis one. The quest "End of Eternity" I would actually go for... Just make a new character & see how it goes, until you can do it flawless then attempt it on your main character. That token to get it back through cash would actually be something I wouldn't complain against at all... You know the risk, plus you can still get your character back if you really do fail hehe.
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Quote:
Originally Posted by
flamefeniks
I think/hope you know this is an April's Fools post :p (because some of your responses sound as if you think this will actually happen, but the first one seems to say you do know it's an April's Fools post :P) but indeed if I were to take it seriously:
1 or 2 I like too, mainly the Nemesis one. The quest "End of Eternity" I would actually go for... Just make a new character & see how it goes, until you can do it flawless then attempt it on your main character. That token to get it back through cash would actually be something I wouldn't complain against at all... You know the risk, plus you can still get your character back if you really do fail hehe.
Well, I just played myself then. I genuinely thought this as a real thing. I was completly on board and even exited for like 90% of these things aside of the flight thing and the RoP delay.
Now I look like a fool, oh well.
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
you are not the first one- and will not be the last one, dragondaughter:-)
I can t count how often they got me in the past..^^ flying dryards was one of the real good ones*blush*
But I have to admit- Amon- this was a masterpiece..I was just going to take a deep breath for a long post^^...
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
I will confirm now that it's after the day that yes, this was a joke, and no, we don't plan to invade Istaria with PvP and aggressively realistic mechanics. ;)
Though seeing peoples' reactions does make us realise what our community finds fun and interesting that we did not expect, so I guess it has a side effect, haha.
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Wait....half the community levels peds to R278 and the other half levels Lair-shaping to 100?
.....and you didn't think we were all dark and twisted? :confused::D
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
Honestly, if you added most of the things that were mentioned it would make Istaria more interactive and fun. It's just a matter of the developers to be brave and venture more outside of the known and trying new things. We would be on board :)
Re: Content Preview: 20.2 Live Update
I don't know Sarsilas, I guess the joke would be on you guys most of us liked around 60% of that eye candy the Insta death when be hit by lightning gave it away as a joke it would totally break Lunus lore as we breath lightning . but
Losing stamina mid-flight results in crashing to the ground and causing fall damage. The higher your portliness, the more damage! If that where turned in to an aoe skill ... I would trade some fall damage for a stun aoe >.> <.< }:>
Dragons may now consume raw meat and gain buffs in return. Consuming a raw Dryad gives a bonus to magic damage for one hour. Think twice before resurrecting your allies. that would cause me to just sign over a grand to you guys every year Perhaps non pvp friendly mobs can be introduced Similar to a cow and chicken but for dragons to eat with an element of danger you never know what dryads have been eating beware the dreaded Dragonip !!!
Hoard decay... No thankyou I would have none if i go on one of my slumbers .
Dragons’ RoP (Rite of Passage) quest will now be locked after a few hours of play every day. The quest will now take at least a week to complete to truly give the immersive experience.
Could take or leave
Portliness and muscularity now have functions.
Portliness increases your defense, but lowers your attack speed. You require more food to decrease death point timers.
Muscularity increases your damage, but you must obtain and drink protein shakes to maintain your visage.
Dragons and Sslik can now embark on the RoG (Rite of Gender) quest to obtain a defined gender. Dimorphism is included.
Eating food which has been in a tavern for too long might give you a food poisoning debuff, making it important to make fresh food.
All that OMG YES !!!
Bashing into things while flying has a chance to do damage. Too much damage might result in becoming injured and unable to fly. This can be healed by visiting a mender in a city.
I'm senceing an ability hear to use our wings like scythes or some type of elongated blade .
You now have to pay rent to the Empire on your vault. Defaulting may result in the Empire's tax collectors paying you a visit ingame - this provides a necessary coin sink.
NO
As you can see most good suggestions some hard agent but most i could adapt to a fun new and challenging way of life
