The updates

Here is the news page detailing the updates (might take me a while to reformat thanks to the way blogger works)

01-09-2008 Game updates: Chat, smithing and more

Region chat

The Region chat channel has been added. This channel will allow you to talk to, and hear from, players who are at the same island or cave.

Login messages have also been moved to region chat.

The new region chat should do the community well. You can now talk to players who got the same level range/interest as you, as they are at the same island/cave.

The world chat has not been removed, but it has moved to channel 2. The chat channel ignore option has been reset because of all the changes, you will need to reselect the channels you want to ignore.

Chat report

A new link has been added next to the chatbar; Report.

Using this link you can report unacceptable chat behavior. You simply need to enter one or multiple usernames, select one or more channels and add a description. Moderators can then use your report and take action where necessary. The report function has replaced chat tickets. Please note that we've chosen not to give feedback about reports. This saves us a lot of work (just imagine how much reports are sent
when someone abuses world chat), but besides that you also do not have to worry
about it any more.

We hope that you'll notice that sending in chat reports does help, instead of receiving feedback about every single report. Adding the chat report function, and the region chat also changes the way that players experience moderators. Moderators will no longer talk in chat. This also means no more confirmations of mutes etc. are given in the chat. This could be nasty for some players when they cannot reply to players that are talking to them, but it's pretty safe to say that people who are muted deserve just that ;).

Furthermore, the last moderation change is that players can notice if their tickets have been replied to by a senior moderator due to it being marked as such.

Whisper

You can now whisper players privately. You can do so by typing Joe@Hello there! in the chat input bar. This will send Hello There! to the player Joe. It does not matter what channel you've selected, as the @ sign will overrule the channel selection. The ignore function works on whisper, and do also note that the chat report function can be used against whisper abuse too.

Some new options for donators

Hide public login:

You've got the option to enable and/or disable the public login message. There are three options: On, Disabled for region chat or Disabled for both region and clan chat.

Double history chat lines:

The chat history's chat lines double.

Show yesterdays chat history:

You can now view the last part of yesterdays chat history.

Two of these options have been added in the higher donation range, but don't worry: We will be filling up the gaps, and always try to add more donation options for all
donation levels.

Farming

We've added 11 new seeds, in the range level 53 to 100. Two of these have been added to Aloria, and some of the new seeds have also been added as monster drops.

However, lacking proper forests, and monsters not all seeds are truly in-game yet.. We will be adding the seeds where possible.

Smithing

The smiting tables always were pretty inconsistent. Because of this, and other changes in this update, we have changed the smithing tables.

The following table now counts for all metals (bronze,iron...syriet). You only need
to add the base metal's level.

0 Pickaxe

0 Dagger

0 Hatchet

1 Sabatons

2 Medium helm

2 Short sword

3 Scimitar

3 Small shield

4 Mace

5 Hands

6 Long sword

7 Medium shield

8 Chainmail

9 Legs

10 Large helm

11 Axe

12 Large shield

13 Two handed sword

14 Plate

The metal base levels:-

5 Bronze

10 Iron

25 Steel

40 Silver

55 Gold

70 Platina

85 Syriet

Because the items have been moved around, experience has too. Looking at
the tables, it doesn't look like experience has changed much for smithers. If we
somehow notice it has affected smithing (experience wise) we will consider the
feedback and balance it where necessary.

Weapon and armour level requirements:

Until now, most of the smithed items were useless. Level requirements have been added on every single smithable item.

These level requirements are the same as the smithing requirements.

Reasons to add it:

• Motivation and more reasons for every level up
• The smithing items all have use now
• More trade
• The rare sets (such as Elven) have more use too, but do not rule out smithed items.
• Also, because we wanted this change, it needed to be added now, at introduction of Syriet.

We realize there is one reason to complain for some players: You are not able to wear some items, that you were previously able to wear. This means it could be possible you are now 'weaker' than you would have been before this change.

This problem only really affect players that are level 10,25,40,55,70 or a few levels higher, as higher level players will be able to wear almost or exactly the same as before. Luckily, the above problem doesn't count for all players. However we've tried to reduce/eliminate the problem.

1. This is a 'temporary' solution for the complaint. You can keep wearing any items you were wearing before the update (even if they would now be a too high level for you to equip).

2. More sets will be added, such as at least two arena sets (that can be gotten by exchanging arena medals). Sets like these are of course rare, but will allow equal or
better stats than before on the same levels. About the arena sets: We expect to add these in one of the very next game updates.

3. The most important fix for this complaint is that we've raised a lot of the items stats, according to their level. E.g. a plate now requires a higher level to wear, but also has more armour. A lot of the weapons and armour have raised stats, so that they should be close to, or better than before.We have tried to combat this one and only complaint against this level requirement change. However, we hope that there are plenty of players that not only look at their own player, but also at whats good
for the game itself. In the end that's what we had to do too.

Changes to other level requirements:

Finally, we felt it was necessary to change the level requirements on the following three item/sets:

Valera sword: 5 ( was 1)

Ogre: 10 ( was 1)

Lizard: 20 (was 1, and 25 for hatchet)

Syriet (ore) in game !

Syriet ore has been added to the game, this allows smithing the best available items at the moment. Syriet ore has been spotted in the Arch. Caves. Syriet smelting is now also possible. It is not sure if the Syriet ore will exhaust in the future, and if the smelting conditions will stay as favorable in Arch. Cave 4. (We want to be able to give it a better spot if required ;) ).The platina ore respawn amount has increased at the Arch caves.

Some other changes:
Fighting:

A Critical hit message will appear if you hit very high for your doing, taking the weapon into account. In other words; The critital hit message will appear if you hit
close to your maximum hit thats possible with your weapon. This has changed
nothing to the actual damage done and received.

Warning for everyone who links to Syrnia: All links that used to end with .m2h have been renamed to .php.

A rare inventory display bug has been fixed

Fixed the :( forum smiley that disappeared after an edit.

Changing your avatar will now also change all old (clan) forum posts

New username restrictions (only a-Z 0-9, spaces and �_� allowed in your username)

The Platina, and Gold hatchet smithing level has been fixed (was level 2)

Based on feedback: Soft spider silk, and Hardened spider silk drops are a bit more rare

The tutorial no longer allows camping.

New players only see the help channel, they can see and use the other channels after completing the tutorial.

All tutorial locations now use the map to move on.

A lockpicking and cooking work images have been added.

Feedback

While we have thought a lot about balancing/changes, it might still be possible we need to tweak some things that we've missed. So it could be possible we adjust some of the changes a bit later, we will be also watching your positive feedback about the changes.