Patch 63 - Oct 2, 2008

[Derrick]

• CTF games now allows for client version restriction so we may run areas like CTF(Urban) which require 5.0.0.0 client or later. We'll be running this more often if you want to play, please patch up to 5.0.8.3.
• Pets no longer take on the notoriety of their masters.
• Pet's will be grey to you if they are guarding you.
• You may now steal from your own pack horse if he is guarding you
• Buff to Order guards, slight decrease in carried gold
• Order guards will now cure and heal themselves
• Nerf to EV melee damage due to new harm spell, this should have been done with the addition of the harm spell but was overlooked at that time.
• Glacial staffs no longer drop.
• Bug fix to tourney system menu

[Rollercouli]

this does kinda seem like a tamer kill, i mean.. shouldnt a tamer vet his pet? Now the tamer will go crim by vetting a pet that guards him?

[Derrick]

this does kinda seem like a tamer kill, i mean.. shouldnt a tamer vet his pet? Now the tamer will go crim by vetting a pet that guards him?

It doesn't make the pet a criminal, it makes the pet gray (attackable) to the guardee. It's just like wild animals who are gray, they aren't criminals. Everyone else will see the pet as blue.

[Rollercouli]

this does kinda seem like a tamer kill, i mean.. shouldnt a tamer vet his pet? Now the tamer will go crim by vetting a pet that guards him?

It doesn't make the pet a criminal, it makes the pet gray (attackable) to the guardee. It's just like wild animals who are gray, they aren't criminals. Everyone else will see the pet as blue.

ahh thanks for clearing that up

[venox]

order guards are really hard to kill with archery now.
i shoot about 90 arrows and it was still alive!!!
plus they still move really slow.

[Ebywok]

Will pets still be attacked by gray animals that were previously tamed? or does the notoriety thing fix this?

[Derrick]

order guards are really hard to kill with archery now.
i shoot about 90 arrows and it was still alive!!!
plus they still move really slow.

Yeah, the idea behind order guards is that they'd be at the guard stations to give new players a little santuary outside of town. They were dropping way too easily before.

Will pets still be attacked by gray animals that were previously tamed? or does the notoriety thing fix this?

Not sure. This behavior is a little strange and hasn't been fully looked into yet

[XaN]

Yes, the ease of killing Order Guards was what drew me into killing them. You could have increased there hp's or increased their damage output, but to make it so they can cast heal/cure? Do they look like mages to you..?

You can keep other t2a bugs, why not this one?

[Derrick]

Point well made. This was something that was probably less that well thought out. In the meantime, pretend that they are chugging, and I'll see what I can do about this.

[alatar]

pretend that they are chugging

[Slade]

Point well made. This was something that was probably less that well thought out. In the meantime, pretend that they are chugging, and I'll see what I can do about this.

Everything that is wrong with MMORPG balance methodology in two tiny sentences.

This is not a hostile post. Just reminding you that you're human, and are making the same mistake with game balance that every single game designer in history has made. =)

What exactly is the problem that you saw with the order guards?

[Derrick]

They could be taken down in < 40 secs with no risk by an EV, and they are meant to be there to protect the road, as is was, the post was often empty.

I hear what you're saying. I didn't make it impossible to kill em, but just to modify the cost/reward balance a little.

[Slade]

Correct me if I'm wrong, as I had almost NO interaction with these guys on OSI, I certainly didnt kill any of them... but I know for a FACT that some of these guard posts were quite literally guarded areas on OSI. You would get "you have entered the protection of the guards" messages as you walked through some of them, and a friend of mine was actually insta-gibbed by one when he got too close as a red.

Are these even supposed to be killable?

[Derrick]

These posts were unmanned for the first few months of Second Age.
I recall them providing protection, but I didn't specifically remember there being "guardzone" areas in the middle of the woods, so putting some order guards in there (i thought) was a good compromise, not having any more specific info.

Likely they were guarded areas on OSI, and that's certainly implementable. This conversation probably should be made it's own thread.

[Slade]

These posts were unmanned for the first few months of Second Age.
I recall them providing protection, but I didn't specifically remember there being "guardzone" areas in the middle of the woods, so putting some order guards in there (i thought) was a good compromise, not having any more specific info.

Likely they were guarded areas on OSI, and that's certainly implementable. This conversation probably should be made it's own thread.

I can 100% guarantee that they were "You have entered the protection of the guards" or whatever zones at some point during this era.

This might not be easily verifiable though, as this isnt something that is likely to be in any patch notes.

I can guarantee it though because this red friend was in statloss. He followed into a post and was teleport-Gwhacked. I rezzed him outside the guard zone, unfortunately it was next to a wandering goat. After he rezzed, the GOAT killed him again. Double statloss, one caused by a wandering goat. =/

Not the kind of story one forgets, and it all happened near one of these guard posts. So I can guarantee you that they were indeed guarded like towns, but I can't place the exact time-frame.

I know it was after the first major housing change, because that same day we looted an entire bag of house deeds out of a house of some poor bastard who was moving and we killed him. So this was after the first of the major housing patches.