Game updates/20050907

Update - Wednesday September 7, 2005

Sorrow's Furnace

• Sorrow's Furnace consists of two new, large and challenging explorable regions located deep in the Shiverpeak Mountains between Spearhead Peak and Snake Dance. These areas contain the following:
  • Seventeen new quests, most of them fully repeatable and offering high XP rewards.
  • Four new cinematics.
  • A variety of new monsters, including new Stone Summit Dwarves that are the strongest in the Shiverpeak Mountains, and entirely new types of creatures that are being introduced to the game for the first time.
  • Boss monsters named after the contest winning entries.
• Boss monsters in the new Sorrow's Furnace regions drop newly-introduced green "unique" weapons that are named after the boss.

Titan Quests

• The Titan Quests are a series of five new veteran-level quests, starting in Droknar's Forge and spanning the continent, that continue the storyline for those who have already vanquished the foes of Hell's Precipice. These quests feature some of the most challenging and rewarding content in the game, with ten new types of monsters, including several never-before-seen creature types.

Chests and Loot

• The landscape of Tyria is now dotted with new, randomly positioned locked chests, which are guaranteed to contain uncommon or better items. These chests largely replace the old system of unlocked chests with predictable positions and common loot.
• Whenever your party finds a new, locked chest, multiple party members can each use their own keys to unlock the chest and get their own loot.
• Monsters randomly drop chest keys, and you can also buy chest keys from Merchants.
• Added Superior Salvage Kits and Superior Identification Kits, which are the same as Expert Salvage Kits and Identification Kits except with 100 charges instead of 25.
• Improved the quality of most Crafter and Collector Weapons.
• Increased the drop rate of uncommon and rare items on large maps.
• Increased the drop rate of all insight scrolls.
• Added three new insight scrolls: Adventurer's Insight, Hunter's Insight, and Rampager's Insight. These scrolls provide a level of accelerated XP gain for the entire party but are much more common and less expensive than the existing rare insight scrolls.
• Collectors in Perdition Rock and Sorrow's Furnace now give XP enhancing scrolls in return for collectable monster drops. Conversely, there are no longer crafters for these scrolls.
• Various low-level quests now give additional gold as a reward for completion.

Skill Acquisition

• The maximum amount of XP required to gain additional skill points beyond level 20 has been lowered from 20,000 to 15,000. This change retroactively benefits existing characters.
• The gold cost of learning new skills now follows a price curve similar to armor, rising in cost more quickly than before but capping out at 1 platinum piece after learning 20 skills.
• Skill trainers in towns now offer a wider selection of skills, and there is a newly introduced skill trainer in Ember Light Camp who sells every non-elite skill in the game.

Faction Gain

• The accelerated Faction rewards that were temporarily available during the PvP Extreme Weekend have now become a permanent part of the game.
• The Priests of Balthazar are now located in PvP map outposts instead of towns, so you don't need to have or use a high-level role-playing character to spend your faction points.

Attribute Points

• The concept of Attribute Refund Points has been removed from the game. You can now refund and reassign your attribute points as much as you like, whenever you are in a town or outpost.

Guilds and Guild Combat

• For 100 gold you can now invite someone to be a guest of your guild. As a guest, he can enter your Guild Hall any number of times over the next 8 hours, join your team and participate with you in Guild Combat. If he has been a member of his own guild for long enough to receive full Faction for guild battles, then he will also receive full Faction for playing with you as a guest of your guild. (However, to engage in Guild Combat, at least half the members of your team must be members of your guild.)
• Inviting a new member into your guild now costs 100 gold.
• The opposing guild’s rating and rank are now displayed when you receive a challenge and at the beginning of Guild combat.
• Balance changes to Guild combat maps make the Guild Lord less susceptible to ganking:
  • Newly introduced banner messages warn you if your base is breached or if your Guild Lord is attacked.
  • The NPC Arcanists have been replaced with Bodyguards who not only cast spells on the enemy team but also heal your Guild Lord. They also now appear in your list of Party Allies.
  • The NPC Archers now use Pin Down on the invading enemy team.
  • New NPC Archers have been added to the Druid's, Nomad's, and Frozen Isle guild halls.
  • The Guild Lord himself, and various defending NPCs, are sturdier than they were before.
• The "Victory or Death!" cry now comes at 30 minutes instead of 45 minutes.
• In Guild Combat, your guild cape is now colored red or blue to indicate your team color.

Other PvP Changes

• Arenas can now match teams with opponents from around the world.
• Prebuilt PvP characters now include Resurrection Signet.
• Default PvP character weapon choices are now more appropriate.
• Pets now stay closer to their owners.
• Players no longer receive XP or Faction from the deaths of enemies that their party did not kill.

Skill Changes

• Updated various skill descriptions to more accurately describe the skill effects.
• Fixed Fevered Dreams so that it doesn't spread conditions to allies.
• Fixed "I Will Avenge You!" so that it doesn't count dead spirits.
• Fixed Physical Resistance so that it no longer lowers your elemental armor by more than it should.
• Fixed Revive Animal so that the health of the newly revived animal depends on the attribute level of the caster.
• Fixed Symbiotic Bond so that it correctly redirects half of the damage from the pet to the master, and changed it from a stance to a shout.
• Fixed Well of the Profane so that targets in the area of effect cannot be the target of new enchantments, rather than not being able to cast new enchantments.
• Fixed Divine Boon, Guilt, Mark of Subversion, Peace and Harmony, Shame, and Zealot's Fire so that when they say "when casting a skill/spell that targets an ally/enemy," they only trigger on targeted skills or spells, not on untargeted ones.
• Fixed the Resurrection Orb so that it doesn’t resurrect dead spirits.

Monster Balance Changes

• Increased the level of difficulty and reward in The Underworld. Several areas have been updated with new creatures to add variety to fights and emphasize teamwork.
• Updated boss monster spawns throughout the Southern Shiverpeaks so that boss monsters are less random, and therefore elite skill capture is more reliable.
• Renamed "Stone Summit Arcanist" to "Stone Summit Heretic," and Shiverpeak's "Grawl Ulodyte" to "Grawl Crone" for clarity.
• Armageddon Lords now spawn Ashen Hulks when they die.
• Blessed Griffons, Mergoyle Wavebreakers, and other creatures who use Grasping Earth, Deep Freeze, or Symbol of Wrath will now use them properly even with only one enemy present.
• Centaurs and Dwarves in The Traveler's Vale now respond more intelligently to ranged attacks.
• Flesh Golems now cast Death Nova.
• Kings Guards in Thunderhead Keep are now appropriate level, helping reduce the initial difficulty of the mission.
• Tengu Groups in Twin Serpent Lakes now have a better variety of creatures.

User Interface

• The Quest Log now groups quests by importance and region.
• The green Quest Arrows now guide you towards the next step of the quest even if it is more than one map away.
• Traders now display a "last paid" price on the sell tab.
• Item upgrades on Priests of Balthazar are now color-coded to show the enhancement level.
• The Priests of Balthazar now display information about previously unlocked items.
• The names of Major Runes now appear purple (uncommon), and those of Superior Runes are now displayed in gold (rare).
• Faction bonuses for Flawless Victories and Winning Streaks are now displayed with different text in your chat window.
• The Skill List now sorts skills by attribute in its default setting.
• The trade window more clearly distinguishes between platinum and gold offered, and displays a warning if the other player offers customized items.
• A button on the Guild tab provides easy travel to your Guild Hall.
• After leveling up, a new on-screen button provides a visual reminder to spend your new attribute points.
• Added new tooltips to many user interface elements.
• Updated European and Korean translations.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed several quests with missing NPC locations in the quest log.
• Fixed missing exclamation marks over key NPCs.
• Fixed bugs in the following missions: Fort Ranik, Thunderhead Keep, Iron Mines of Moladune, The Underworld, and Fissure of Woe.
• Fixed bugs in the following quests: Counting the Fallen, Defend the Temple of War, Endangered Species, Family Reunion, Final Blow, Fires in the North, A Gift for Althea, Oswalt's Epitaph, The Royal Papers, The Misplaced Sword, To Kryta: Journey's End, and Tower of Courage.
• Fixed doors in the holdout at the end of Thunderhead Keep.
• Fixed pathing issues in D'Alessio Arena, Dragon's Gullet, Druids Isle, Scoundrel's Rise, and the Isle of the Dead guild hall.
• Fixed inaccuracies in the sword symbols which are displayed after completing a primary or secondary mission.
• Fixed green quest markers so that they properly update on the Map Area window.
• Fixed a display error that sometimes caused skills from your old secondary profession to still continue to be displayed in your skill inventory after switching to a new secondary profession.
• Fixed a bug which caused vendor items to sometimes show an "Under Construction" icon.
• Fixed Condition, Hex, and Enchantment Health bar icons that were not updating correctly for out of range targets.
• Fixed movement key state not being restored upon release of opposite movement key.
• Fixed profession and level truncation in party window invites.
• Fixed the potential for accidental item drops that existed when releasing items on the background of the multiple bag interface.
• Fixed chat bubble stacking.
• Fixed various minor glitches related to window sizes and text clipping.
• Fixed miscellaneous rare crash bugs.