AC2:Announcements - 2003/02 - Ambuscade

Episode 3: "Ambuscade"

Original Link (now dead) - microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/Episodes/epguide_02-03_index.htm?nc=1

February '03

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• Episode 3: "Ambuscade"--Teaser
• Teaser Video (56k | 110k | 300k | 1024k)
• Letter to the Players
• Dev Notes
• NEW Update Announcement
• An Introduction to Mounts
• A Closer Look at Mounts
• Defeating the Undead Invasion; Or, What's Up With This Saddle?

 

Teaser

Original Link (now dead) - microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/Episodes/teaser_0203.htm?nc=1

Ambuscade

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A hundred yards off, the skeleton rider considered Telkhe. Then holding its mace high, it spurred its mount, shouting, "We shall see whether you are truly worthy of my Master's regard, mortal!"

Telkhe stood impassively, seeming to ignore the danger that charged at him. He regarded the monstrous beast and its rider. The beast was obviously undead; exposed bone peeked out from decaying flesh, and deep gouges marred its back, signs that it had been driven hard over harsh territories. As it drew closer, the thundering sound of the beast's hooves grew deafening, and the stench of death and decay became almost overpowering.

Although the skeleton was now only a scant ten yards away, Telkhe still did not move. Suddenly, a ball of fire struck the decaying creature's flank. It stumbled, narrowly missing Telkhe. As the creature slowed, still trying to recover from her initial blast, Jasi stepped from concealment behind a boulder and unleashed another spell. At the same time, Thukkos charged from some sheltering ruins to the creature's left, his sword arm poised to inflict a tremendous blow on the skeleton rider.

The trap now sprung, Telkhe spun around and beat a rhythm on his drum, releasing a bolt of lightning that struck the mount between its ribs. A moment later, Thukkos' blow knocked the skeleton rider from its saddle onto the parched earth below.

As its rider fell to the ground, the mount loosed an unearthly wail and collapsed, its animating spark now lost. Thukkos took no notice and continued his assault on the beast's rider. As Thukkos raised his sword to finish the skeleton, it raised its arm to ward off the blow. His sword cleaved both arm and breastplate, severing the creature in half.

"So I fall," the creature breathed, the unnatural light fading from its eyes. "And yet the task remains…"

Thukkos straightened, catching his breath, then said, "These undead. Always prattling on."

Jasi eyed Thukkos and muttered sarcastically, "Yes, I surely wouldn't know what it is like to be around something that talks on and on for no reason." She then cast her gaze from side to side. "Where's Telkhe?"

Not having the breath to respond to her sarcastic remark, Thukkos simply pointed and gasped, "Over there. Next to that beast."

Jasi approached the fallen animal as Telkhe kneeled by its side, muttering something she couldn't quite make out.

"Telkhe, what's wrong?" she said, concern evident in her voice.

Telkhe continued for a moment more, then looked up at Jasi. "This creature's keh was tortured. I was asking Blue Mother Heaven to give it peace." Standing up, he continued, "These are creatures of dreams, Jasi. We must help them." Without another word, he turned and walked away from the corpse.

"Fine, fine," Jasi grumbled. "No use in trying to talk you out of anything."

A short distance away from the party, a lone figure stood in the shadows cast by the nearby ruins. It stood there considering them, then was gone.

 

Teaser Video

Original Link (now dead) - No Link Available

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Letter to the Players

Original Link (now dead) - microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/Episodes/FebLttP.htm?nc=1

Ambuscade"
February 2003 Letter to the Players

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We will proudly unveil our February Episode, "Ambuscade," shortly. There's lots of cool content for all levels of players… And we're certainly excited about being able to show off the first tier of a feature that will be released solely through the Live team process; no expansion pack required. (If you don't yet know what the feature is, log into the game after "Ambuscade" goes live, and you'll soon find out!)

I want to hit on some of the significant changes and bug fixes to be presented in this Episode. Consider this a combination of our usual monthly Letter and the Developer's Notes. I'll talk about skills, combat, quests, inventory and UI, treasure and crafting, and miscellaneous bug fixes.

Before I begin, one important note: There are a number of exploits that we have fixed for February which are not mentioned below but will be announced in a short addendum to the February Developer's Notes released the day of the Episode.

Skills and Pets

For February, we've made some changes to the Tactician class. Additionally, we've fixed a couple of issues that we were not able to get in by the February deadline. These include Invoker pets failing to move to their target, and classes trying to summon a pet such as a Turret, but the pet fails to place even though the skill timer is greyed out. These things will definitely be fixed for March, and potentially sooner, should there be an intra-Episode patch.

Also for March, all skills that we're aware of as completely non-functional (e.g., Fate's Forgiveness, critical hit skills, and a few others; we will publish a full list in a few weeks) will be fixed. In the Skill examination panel, skills will display full information about their effect: duration, heal rates, damage-over-time rates, etc.

Here are the changes for February:

• Pet Information —The owner of a Pet can now view the skills cast on a pet along with the duration left on the effects. Players other than the owner will not be able to see this information.
• Turrets [Tacticians] —A few things:
  • The damage of Turrets is no longer tied to the level of the Casing skills, but to the level of the Ammo skills. Having a level X Ammo skill should roughly deliver the same amount of damage that the level X Casing skill did. Improving your Casing skill now only determines the armor level and hit points of the Turret, and a part of your "to-hit" with the Turret.
  • The Tactician Adept skill now also helps determine your "to-hit" with your Turret. It is worth noting that having X level skill in your Casing and X level skill in your Adept skill represents a noticeable bonus in your "to-hit" percentage over the old system.
  • All Ammo skills except for Single-Barrel and Armor Piercing must now be reapplied to your Turret every 5 minutes. Single-Barrel and Armor Piercing now have to be reapplied every 10 minutes.
• Recurrent Ministrations [Sage] —There was a bug which allowed this skill to be recast every few seconds. This has now been changed to have a cool-down timer of 5 minutes, as was originally intended.
• Parry [Lugian Missile] —You can no longer inadvertently hit yourself with Parry.

Minor skill changes:

• All self-sprint skills can now be cast while moving. These include Surge Step [Lugian Melee], Sprint [Bounty Hunter], Dash [Human Missile], and Wingfoot [Tumerok Mage].
• Skills which affect weapons indirectly, such as Emblem of Might [Defender], can now be seen when you examine the affected weapon. The name of the skill and its remaining duration are displayed.
• You can no longer use Pet enhancement skills on the wrong type of Pet. Before this change, Pets wouldn't receive a benefit from the wrong type of skill, but now you can't even cast it.
• When attempting to use a skill on a target, and the target dies before the skill goes off, the skill would still consider itself used, and the cool-down timer for the skill would have started. This has been changed so that the cool-down timer does not start unless the skill actually goes off.
• Trailblazing [Ranger] can now be cast while wielding a magic implement. There was a bug preventing this previously.

Combat and Creatures

For February, we continued to focus on monster A.I. improvements, along with a few general combat tweaks. Our goals are for monsters to represent an appropriate danger for players in all situations. Once we feel that this goal has been accomplished, we will reassess the XP totals for Tyrants and Giguraths. The March Episode will represent the last of our planned changes/fixes to monster A.I. Our focus in monster A.I. will then change to expanding the repertoire of monster strategies and making them work more effectively together.

Here are the fixes for February:

• I Hit This! —There was a bug affecting both players and monsters that sometimes prevented melee attacks from successfully making contact with either large monsters or monsters on a slope. This should be fixed now.
• Critical Hits actually work now! —Each auto-attack now has a 5% chance of being a critical hit, which will do double damage to the target. There was a bug preventing this from happening.
• Monster Targeting and Pathing Tweaks —There are lots of tweaks and improvements to monster A.I. to make them more likely to target those players who represent the most current danger to them. Factors such as Nemesis hatred of certain player races also still play a very large role. Monsters should also be more effective at negotiating difficult terrain to get to players.
• Fellowship Immunity —Fellowship members can no longer be affected by harmful attacks from the fellowship, whether these are area of effect attacks, single target attacks or auto-attacks.
• Dereth is Full of Wonders —Many landscape objects, such as many types of rocks and trees, and monster "cultural objects," are now ethereal to monsters and will no longer impede their movement.

Quest Changes

Quests are an essential aspect of AC2, and we have tried to make sure that the rewards of quests reflect their importance. However, there were a number of quest rewards that significantly overshadowed their skill-based counterparts. Some of these quests could be repeated often, which made those skills not very useful.

Furthermore, these buffs were actually overwritten by some skills, which is why people who had done the "Curse of the Moarsmen" quest reported that their skills negatively impacted their HPs when they used an HP-buff skill.

As a result, we've reduced the reward on a number of different quests. To compensate, we've made most of these rewards stackable (i.e., able to be added on to) with skill bonuses.

The changed dynamics are:

• The speed increase provided by "Vakentu's Haste" (given as reward for the "The Broken Totem" quest) has been reduced from 30% to 10%. This speed increase will stack with skills that increase speed, such as Winged Foot and Dash.
• The damage increase provided by the "Ghostfire Gauntlets" has been reduced from 20% to 5%. This damage increase will stack with skills such as Berserk and Acumen.
• The hit point increase provided by the "Curse of the Moarsman" quest has been reduced from 200 points to 50 points. This hit point increase will stack with skills such as Life Unbound and Lumbering Might.
• The damage increase provided by "Idol Crusher" (given as reward for the "Burun Despoilment" quest) has been reduced from 23% to 10%. This damage increase will not stack with skills, but will stack with the increase provided by the Ghostfire Gauntlets.

Other Quest Revisions:

• The Rytheran dungeon has been tweaked to make the experience more challenging.
• There had been a bug where The Font of Icefire advanced the quest for everyone in a fellowship once one person had handed in his or her Ancient Weapon, thereby breaking the quest for everyone else in the fellowship. This has been fixed.
• The entrance to the Golden Age Reliquary dungeon has been moved from a Kingdom versus Kingdom zone to a nearby Peaceful area.
• The Amulet of Seeking from the Eeruk quest had mistakenly been being created with spell effects on it. These have been removed.
• If Dantry sent you to find the Drudge Heretics, they'll now properly advance your quest and let you know that you should return to Dantry after completing the quest.
• The portal to the Shreth Spawning Pit now requires you to be on the "Shreth Gauntlet" quest to pass through it.
• The Shrethwarden Door Key now requires you to be on the "Shreth Gauntlet" quest to pick it up.
• The Burun Shrethwarden's Head is now bonded to the character that picked it up.
• The portal to the Sclavus Hierophant's Temple now requires you to be on the "The Sclavus Hierophant's Cabals" quest to pass through it.
• Characters who have completed the Arwic and Mad Crone Vaults will no longer be able to pass through the final Vestibule portal in those Vaults, as is the case in all the other Vaults.
• The Shard found at the Thusik Delta Vault has been fixed and will now provide the correct experience reward. Players who have already completed the Vault will be able to repeat it and get the experience reward they should.
• Players can no longer recall or summon the portals to the Inner Darkness, Darkenfowl Pens, or Ghost Mines dungeons.
• The drop rate of Deep Darkenfowl Eggs is now 20%, while the drop rate on Chthonic Darkenfowl Eggs is now 25%.
• The "Broken Totem," "Burun Despoilment" and "Sanguine Fang" quests no longer fail when the character logs out.
• The "Three Doctrines" quest has been revised. Those who were in the process of completing this quest will need to restart it now in order to complete it. However, if a character has already completed the quest, they will still not be able to repeat it.
• The negative effect applied to players for failing the "Curse of the Moarsman" quest has been reduced from 6 hours to 2 hours.
• Characters at level 28 can now receive the "Dillo Rustlers" quest, as was intended.
• Characters at level 25 can now receive the "Cleanse the Burial Mound" quest, as was intended.

Inventory and UI

One of the major pushes of the AC2 Live team over these first few months has been to polish and enhance the UI of the game. Whether that is better highlighting of information, or making a feature easier to use, we are committed to continuing to make AC2 a fun and enjoyable game free of frustration. This month, we improved the ability to loot corpses and enhanced the effects display on the top left portion of your screen, among other things.

Next month we will work on a UI for your Friends list, add additional backpacks and storage space to your inventory, and further improve the information you get from examining magical items and skill effects.

Enhancements and fixes for February:

• Far Easier Looting and Transmuting: When opening a monster's corpse or a treasure chest, there will now be two new buttons to use. The first button on the bottom left of the corpse UI is a "Loot All" button. If you have room in your inventory for all of the items, they will be placed in your inventory. The second button on the bottom right of the corpse UI is a "Transmute All" button. This button puts the converted gold directly into the character's gold bag; however, the character will still need one free inventory slot to temporarily hold each item as it is converted. Also note that "Transmute All" will ignore Quest items.
• Duration Status Bars: Each spell or effect cast on your character will now display a small yellow status bar below its icon. This status bar will shorten as the spell or effect wears off, and it should let you know at a glance which ones will need to be refreshed. We have also increased the number of effect icons which can be displayed at one time, from 5 to 9. The sorting on these icons has been changed as well, so those on the far left will run out sooner than those on the far right.
• Temporary Inventory Slots: In order to prevent numerous issues that crept up from people trying to interact with quests and NPCs when the player had a full inventory, we've added a few "overflow" slots to your inventory. So if an NPC gives you an item, and your inventory is full, the new item will appear at the top of your inventory, while the last item in your inventory will temporarily disappear. Don't worry, the last item in your inventory has not been lost; it simply isn't displayed until inventory space is freed up. There is a limit of 10 overflow slots, so we still recommended that you try to free up space in your inventory. Most NPCs will no longer advance your quest if they cannot give you a quest item.

Treasure and Crafting

For February, we've made only one notable change to the crafting system. In the next few months, the majority of our time will be devoted to expanding and adding a lot of cool things to the treasure system. We are committed to crafting in AC2, but our first priority is to add spice and variety to the treasure system, which for a few months will take the full attention of the team to improve in the fashion befitting AC2. Once we've completed the treasure system enhancements, we can then turn our attention to the crafting system, making it a suitable counterpart to the treasure system, and worth the time and attention that crafters have put into it.

We know that this may be frustrating for some of you, but we feel our best path of success is to focus on one major "item" system at a time, instead of trying to split our attention on both. If you like the treasure changes over the next few months, then I think you will enjoy the direction the crafting system takes after that period.

For February, the one major crafting change is that when you succeed in a Dye attempt, there is no longer any possibility of damaging your armor. Unsuccessful dye attempts still can damage your armor.

Minor crafting changes:

• Item Gambling Recipes are changed from "Boost <item>" to "Improve <item>."
• The Mucor Mushroom Potion Recipes are now in the Potions section of the Quest Recipe vocation.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

We've improved or fixed various issues for February. The biggest series of improvements are our fixes to some of the sound issues that have been affecting players over the last few months. This has been a challenging problem for us, and we continue to welcome feedback and specific information from you if you have any issues with sound and performance. We also continue to look into lag reports, especially at Linvak Tukal. Again, please continue to report these types of issues to us.

For February:

• Improved Sound Performance—We've addressed several sound issues to improve performance. Performance may be improved further by lowering the "Number of Playing Sounds" slider in your sound preferences. Also, the music volume slider will now remember your setting throughout your current and future game sessions.
• Missing Shore Effects—A bug in the revised shoreline effects code has been corrected. Shoreline effects should display correctly again.
• Experience Display Bugs—If a skill was partially untrained, an error could occur that would give the impression that experience had been lost and that the skill could never be raised to its maximum skill level. This has been fixed. Now when examining a skill that has been partially untrained, whatever experience is needed to raise the skill by one point will be displayed.

Miscellaneous minor tweaks and bug fixes:

• The arrival point for the Northwest Outpost portal on the Malthabbor Ringway has been moved out of the Kingdom v. Kingdom zone and into the nearby Peaceful zone.
• The musical instruments introduced in January were accidentally set to bond to the character that picked them up. This problem has been fixed so that all newly generated instruments may be given to other characters. However, instruments generated in January are not changed and are still bonded to the character that picked them up.

Conclusion

For March, we plan to release our specific plans for changes to existing gameplay, quests, skills, and items sooner in our production process in order to give the Asheron's Call 2 community more insight into the ways that we are changing your world. We are keenly aware of the issues that continue to plague some of you—lag, sound issues, broken skills, monster exploits—and we are working hard to address each of these as quickly as we can. We depend on your feedback to continue to respond to those issues in a timely and effective manner.

And while we continue to address existing issues in AC2, we're also striving to provide you with new gameplay experiences in an ongoing game that no other MMP can provide. We know that some of you would prefer us to focus only on bugs, others only on new content. We feel that the health and ongoing success of AC2 depends on us continuing to do both, using all the skills of our development team—the artists and programmers and designers—to make AC2 the best ongoing game experience possible.

Everyone here at Turbine and Microsoft appreciates the time and energy you, our players, spend in these worlds. It is your passion that allows us to expand and evolve the world of Dereth. Thank you for playing Asheron's Call 2.

Ken Troop
Producer, AC2 Live

 

Dev Notes

Original Link (now dead) - microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/FebDevNotes.htm?nc=1

"Ambuscade"
Developer Notes

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Although the majority of our gameplay changes are detailed in this month's Letter to the Players, there are a few more things we want to tell you about now that our "Ambuscade" episode has launched. Some of these changes were implemented after this month's Letter was released. Others are game exploits that we didn't want to make worse by pointing them out until fixes were in place.

• Skill Effect Precedence—There was a bug in which the last buff-skill used on a player "overwrote" a similar buff-skill, even if the first buff-skill had a bigger effect. We've fixed this for February, so now the level of the skill used determines which buff-skill stays on the character, with higher level skills trumping lower level versions. However, there are still possible issues with two different skills that do the same effect, such as Encase and Shield Wall. A higher level Encase would "overwrite" a lower level Shield Wall, even though the Shield Wall skill possibly has a greater boost to your armor. In most situations, though, this difference should be negligible.
• Blowing up Other People's Turrets! —You can no longer use beneficial skill-buffs on a Pet unless you are the owner of the Pet. This removes griefing tactics such casting Single Barrel on someone's Turret that has Double Barrel, or casting Self-Destruct Sequence on someone's Turret.
• More Anti-Exploit Code—If you receive the "that wasn't a fair fight" message when fighting a monster, the monster will no longer drop loot on death or grant any special death effects on characters. This includes creatures such as Guardians, so if they are unable to defend themselves against attack, they will not change Kingdom, nor will the ownership of the landblock they defend change.
• Portal Restrictions—All ringway and gateway portals on Omishan and Linvak Massif now have level restrictions appropriate to the level of the continent. For Omishan, this change restricts portals to character levels 15 or greater, while Linvak Massif portals are restricted to level 30 or greater. Any player-summoned portals will have these restrictions as well. For the March episode, we will offer more convenient ways for players of different levels to quickly meet with one another.
• Shrethbane Coat—We did not intend for the additional damage provided by the "Shrethbane Coat" recipe to be added to a weapon more than once. Weapons with multiple applications will be reduced to one application of the recipe, and characters will be refunded 11,000 gold for each recipe application that was removed from their weapons.
• "Jump Casting" Addressed—To address the "Jump Casting" exploit, all character skills can no longer be used in mid-air.

 

Update Announcement

Original Link (now dead) - /microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/Episodes/ep3_hotfix.htm?nc=1

February 2003 Update

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On Thursday, February 27, at 1 a.m. PST, we will make a small update to all game servers. In this update, we will address the following issues:

1) We've fixed a situation in which you could lose your mount while going through portal space and be unable to wield items afterward. Also, the mount now automatically disappears upon logging in to the game, in case any similar situations arise.

2) Line of Sight attacks, such as the Human Mage's Explosion skill or Spontaneous Combustion, should now connect with creatures normally.

3) We've reduced the floating height on floating creatures by half to fix a bug which made it difficult for close-range attacks to hit those creatures. There are still a few cases where close-range attacks against very large monsters may fail to connect; we're working on fixing this bug for March.

4) We've fixed the hourglass-on-transmute-all bug. In addition, you no longer need a free inventory slot in order to successfully Transmute All. Finally, when you close a chest/corpse too quickly while trying to Loot All, you should see the message: "You fail to pick up X items. You do not have it open."

There is still an outstanding bug with Transmute All: It sometimes leaves behind one item in the chest. You get the error message "You cannot pick up the <item>. You are too far away." (If this happens, just press the Transmute All button again, and the final item will get hoovered.) We are working on fixing this for March.

5) Dyeing results are now binary success or failure. Either you sucessfully dye the item, or it is horribly damaged and turns pink or orange. In this hotfix, we took out the erroneous case where players could successfully dye the item, but still damage it.

6) Elementalist's Volcanic Rift had two bugs associated with it. One, which prevented it from activating as often as it should, was inadvertently fixed for February. While we're happy that the bug was removed, it revealed another bug in this skill-Volcanic Rift had no attack animations, which resulted its attacking far too quickly. We've added an attack animation to the skill which will slow down its rate of damage. It still has the best Damage Over Time rate in the game. (Note: Although the fix to Volcanic Rift is listed in the Letter to the Players for the March Episode, we actually got to it sooner in this hotfix.)

7) We've fixed the situation where Undead could curse your Turrets and pets, thus killing them in 5 minutes with no way to cure them.

8) We've fixed the client crash that occurred when you hovered over the tooltips in the option panels at very high resolutions. (Note: This is a separate bug fix from the tooltips fix mentioned in the March Letter to the Players.)

9) Juggernaut's Maim skill was failing to display its particles on some monsters. The particle effects are now working correctly. (The skill itself has always worked.)

10) Mucor mushrooms were not ethereal; now they are.

- The AC2 Team

 

An Introduction to Mounts

Original Link (now dead) - microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/Episodes/Ambuscade_Mounts.htm?nc=1

Mounts and "Ambuscade"

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Rumormongers have whispered many a tale in recent days, stories of undead soldiers mounted on beasts of legend. These undead are plaguing the lands surrounding the Fettermounds, those places that bind the Shelters to Dereth. Even worse, the undead are said to possess corrupting magics…

Magics that can transform living creatures into undead servants…

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Unlike any other game, the Asheron's Call franchise continues its proud tradition of epic storylines and compelling features delivered through regular monthly episodes. There's no waiting for expansion packs. We're proud to introduce mounts, our next major feature, just three months into the game's release!

In February, our epic storyline also launches in full. Tales have been spreading that the undead have discovered the means to summon mounts, called "Ataurs" in ancient Empyrean myths. Stealing this knowledge from their withering grasp will not be easy, especially with large swaths of land, and the creatures that live there, poisoned by deadly magics. Fortunately, if they can find the right materials, adventurers will discover that they can craft cures to these poisons—as well as the means to summon mounts of their own!

Please keep in mind that for February, our goal is to give players an initial experience with mounts and a chance to try them out. Mounts are a fun new dynamic, but this is only the beginning!

Expect the gameplay for mounts to evolve continually throughout the next six to nine months, including a broader variety with different speed, cost, and duration trade-offs, terrain sensitivity, and other creative uses! The AC2 Team has a great deal of experience rolling out new features and believes the best method is to release small segments of a feature over the course of several months, rather than one large release in a single month. This ensures the feature rolls out the best possible way for players—and gives us a chance to hear your thoughts.

Please keep in mind that we always welcome player feedback, on mounts and other features, which the AC2 Team uses to help plan future content. So go get your mount, and let us know what you think! (Just head over to the official message boards.)

Continue to Part 2 for more details on mounts... And remember, you can always hit F1 in game for help!

 

A Closer Look at Mounts

Original Link (now dead) - microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/Episodes/Ambuscade_Mounts2.htm?nc=1

A Closer Look at Mounts

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We are excited to introduce player-controlled mounts to Asheron's Call 2 with our February episode. We won't spoil how you can obtain a mount here. Instead, we'll explain some of the game dynamics involved once you've obtained one. Once summoned, a mount will last for a limited amount of time and will give your character an increase to his or her run speed. Here are some of the dynamics and restrictions on mounts:

• The increase in the character's run speed depends on the tier of the mount summoned (i.e., the mounts received from harder quests result in faster run speeds).
• The cost of summoning a mount depends on the tier and duration of the mount.
• You can dismount from a mount at any time, thanks to a new dismount button that will appear on the lower right tool bar once you are mounted.
• You can travel through portals that lead to surface locations while mounted, but if you travel through a portal that leads to a dungeon, your character will automatically dismount. You will also automatically dismount if you run into a dungeon seamlessly connected with the landscape.
• Mounts cannot be summoned inside dungeons.
• If you log out while on a mount, your character will automatically dismount.
• At this time, characters cannot fight from the backs of their mounts.
• Most emotes and actions are unavailable while mounted; however, you can do basic things like bind to Lifestones and pick up, put down, and give items.

The table below lists the costs for the various tiers and the run enhancement they provide.

Tier(s)	Speed Increase	Duration Cost
		15 Minutes	30 Minutes	60 Minutes
1 – 2	140%	50 gold	75 gold	100 gold
3 – 4	190%	500 gold	750 gold	1,000 gold
5	230%	5,000 gold	7,500 gold	10,000 gold

As you've probably noticed, tiers 1 and 2 provide the same benefit at the same cost. The same is true of the tier 3 and 4 mounts for now. The two styles of mounts provided here allow players a bit of visual variety in the type of mount they can summon. We decided to have mounts cost a small amount of gold each time you use them, rather than a large amount up front for unlimited use; this was because we wanted players to experience mounts quickly without needing to first save up a prohibitive amount of gold.

If you want to attempt a different quest to gain a different mount—such as if you find your quest too hard and want to try an easier one, or you want to try a harder quest for a higher-tier mount—just find out from other players where the undead monsters are invading the world. By killing one of these monsters, you will automatically receive the quest (which includes killing that original monster).

As mentioned in our first mounts article, our goal with February was to give players an initial experience with mounts. But this is only the beginning! Expect continual evolvement over the next 6 to 9 months. And as we always welcome player feedback, please tell us what you think of mounts on the official message boards.

 

Defeating the Undead Invasion; Or, What's Up With This Saddle?

Original Link (now dead) - microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/Episodes/ep3_mounts3.htm

Defeating the Undead Invasion; Or, What's Up With This Saddle?

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One of the more fascinating February quests concerns a new AC2 mechanic--mounts. After completing the Curse of the Undead quest, you receive three recipes for creating a magical saddle. Each saddle type summons an Ataur for a different length of time.

There are five level ranges for this quest. When you complete higher levels of the quest, additional recipes for other Ataur are granted. These higher-level recipes summon Ataur that are faster and different in appearance. For instance, the Veldt Ataur (found on Omishan) is 26% faster than the Ley Ataur (found on Osteth). For more information, see Ataur Mount Specifications.

Region	Level Range
Haunted Forests of Lost Wish (Osteth)	1-10
Prosper Fettermound (Osteth)	11-20
Lumari Spills Fettermound (Omishan)	21-30
Vesayan Isles (Omishan)	31-40
Rings of Oriad Fettermound (Linvak Massif	41-50

To make the mounts accessible to all, the difficulty of all quest-related recipes is 0. In addition, the quest reward recipes (used to create the actual saddle) have a gold cost but no ingredient requirements. As the level of the mount increases, the gold cost also increases.

For general information on mounts, see the Mounts in-game help topic.

Quest Details

The Curse of the Undead Quest occurs in five different regions spread over the three landmasses. In these regions, three types of invasion creatures can be found. In Phase 1, you must destroy a certain number of each type. Upon completion, you progress to Phase 2, where you use several quest recipes to craft specific items (all with a difficulty of 0), and ultimately create a saddle pattern. In the final phase, using the saddle pattern completes the quest and grants you a set of tiered recipes that summon a specific Ataur type for your use.

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It had been two weeks since Matok had first heard the tales of infection spreading across the land. Rumors of things vaguely resembling normal inhabitants but reeking of corruption, led by skeletons mounted on undead beasts. Now, nearing the Haunted Forest, Matok realized the tales were true. Blackened and smoking land stretched before him. Small bolts of pain crawled up his legs and the tip of his tail and set his mind on edge… Suddenly, a flash of motion caught his eye. A wave of terror washed over him as a mounted skeleton and its army raced towards him. Resolutely, he faced the attack and began to sing of his death...

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Phase 1: Pushing Back the Undead Invasion

After downloading the February episode and logging in, you automatically receive the Curse of the Undead Quest at the appropriate level for your character.

Each quest variant takes place in a specific region where the ground is blackened, any remaining vegetation is smoking, and glowing embers fall from the sky. It is immediately obvious that this is a forsaken place. In addition to the normal monster population, you will encounter an invasion group comprised of three monster types. The monsters in an invasion group have a different appearance from their live brethren and new specialized attacks, including an attack that automatically kills in five minutes!

To complete Phase 1 of the quest, you must kill a certain number of each invasion monster type. During this killing spree, loot the corpses to collect the necessary ingredients for the next step.

Nemesis Variant (standard name prefixed by "Empowered"; e.g., "Empowered Drudge Outcast") This variant occasionally drops bottles of Undead Venom (used in the Undead Antidote recipe). Collect all that you find.

Undead Variant (standard name prefixed by "Undead"; e.g., "Undead Carrion Shreth") This variant occasionally drops bottles of Infectious Slime (used in the Undead Antidote recipe). In addition, they have a special undead curse attack that kills within five minutes unless cured. Collect all that you find.

Mounted Skeletons (including Skeleton Cavalry, Skeleton Rangers, etc.) Mounted on an undead Ataur, they are very powerful and obviously the leaders of the invasion groups. When you kill one, you will occasionally find a diseased saddle (used in the Saddle Pattern recipe). You only need to collect one of these.

The Curse of the Undead Antidote

The Curse of the Undead Antidote is important for two reasons: it's a component of the Saddle Pattern recipe, and it cures that nasty Undead Curse attack!

Unless you are one of those extremely lucky types, you will at some point become cursed while battling the Undead variants of the invasion force. When you are cursed, an icon and timer appear onscreen, your skin takes on an undead appearance, and a green aura surrounds you. In addition, while cursed your movement and attack speed are slowed.

If you are cursed, you must cure yourself within five minutes or die. The only cure is to craft and use the Undead Antidote. This recipe is located on the Craft panel (under Quest Recipes\Potions) and requires an Undead Venom and an Infectious Slime. The Undead Antidote instantly cures you when used.

Once you have completed this phase, you automatically receive a colored piece of leather. In the next phase, you'll use this piece of leather and your other collected items to disinfect the diseased saddle you should have collected from a Mounted Skeleton corpse.

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Still shaky with fatigue and pain from the day-long battle, Matok carefully assembled the components and prepared to disinfect the saddle he had looted off the mounted rider. Standing and facing the Fire Father as it sank below the horizon, Matok gave thanks for the gifts of life and heat. Finishing his prayer, Matok sank to his haunches and began the detailed process of disinfection...

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Phase 2: Disinfecting the Diseased Saddle

In this phase, you will neutralize the poison on the diseased saddle and create a saddle pattern which you'll need to complete the quest.

As with the Antidote recipe, the Saddle Pattern recipe is located on the Craft panel (under Quest Recipes\General). Using this recipe (difficulty 0), combine the leather piece you received, a sample of the Antidote, and the Diseased Saddle. The result is a colored saddle pattern item.

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Matok stood and greeted the Fire Father. A gentle breeze carried the bright speech of Winged Ones to his ears as they, too, greeted the Father. With renewed energy and a refreshed spirit, Matok packed his small camp and set off for Cavendo to meet his fire mates. It would be good to see them again and share the valuable knowledge he had earned while battling in the Haunted Forest...

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Phase 3: Completing the Quest

In the final phase, use (double-click) the saddle pattern from Phase 2. Doing so destroys the saddle pattern item and completes the Curse of the Undead quest. In addition to experience and quest points, you'll receive three tiered recipes for creating a magical saddle. Each recipe requires no ingredients but costs a certain amount of gold, and creates a single-usage saddle item. The higher the tier, the longer the summoned Ataur stays.

To summon the mount, empty your hands and use the saddle. A summoned Ataur will appear with you automatically mounted on it. To dismount at any time, click the red dismount button located on the lower right side of the tool bar.

Tips and Tricks

Here are a few things you might find useful when completing this quest.

Hunting the Undead
The first quest phase involves hunting down specific monsters and killing a certain number of them. An easy way to scout the poisoned lands and quickly locate your remaining monsters is to use the Show Names option. When you are in the poisoned areas, turn on this option by hitting the V key. Now you can quickly scout the area and locate the monster types you are looking for, even when they are off your radar.

Curse of the Undead Antidote
While the basic effects of the Undead Curse are nasty, the good news is that you can become infected multiple times with no additional effects. With a little preparation beforehand, you can use this to your advantage.

The Curse of the Undead Antidote recipe requires both Undead Venom and Infectious Slime. Since these components are only dropped by the Undead and Empowered variants of monsters, you should focus on these two groups first.

Of the two monster types, the Undead variants are the only ones able to curse you. Therefore, kill all the Empowered monsters first and collect the Undead Venoms they occasionally drop. Before setting out after the Undead variants, set up one of your shortcut bars with a shortcut to the Undead Antidote recipe.

After you have collected enough Infectious Slime (by killing the Undead variants) to cure yourself and still have some extra samples, use the shortcut recipe to make an extra batch of antidote. Drag it to the same shortcut bar that holds your Antidote recipe and continue fighting.

During this period, if you become cursed, continue fighting. Time your battles so that you are not battling when the timer is about to expire (check the icon occasionally to determine the current time remaining). You can usually squeeze in one or two more battles before expiring. Once you are near death, go to your shortcut bar and quickly click the Antidote. Chug the antidote for an instant cure.

Before hunting down the next Undead monster, use the recipe to make another Antidote and add it to your shortcut bar. This ensures that you'll always have an antidote ready when you need it.

Ataur Mount Specifications

Level Range Appearance Speed Duration (in minutes) Tiers 1-2 Tiers 3-4 Tier 5 1 - 10 dark brown (bipedal) 1.4X normal 15 30 60 11 - 20 dark grey (bipedal) 1.4X normal 15 30 60 21 - 30 light blue (bipedal) 1.9X normal 15 30 60 31 - 40 green (bipedal) 1.9X normal 15 30 60 41 - 50 light grey (bipedal) 2.3X normal 15 30 60

Locations of the Undead Quests

Each quest variation takes place in different regions of the three main landmasses.

Haunted Forests of Lost Wish (Osteth) This region is located on the southern tip of the Lost Wish peninsula near the ruins of an ancient city. It is easily accessible via the Lost Wish Ringway. Head south after arriving at the SE Ringway portal (47.2N, 21.3E).

Prosper Fettermound (Osteth) The Prosper Fettermound is a large, ring-shaped area in the central southern Prosper region. It is NW of the Prosper vault, with a Stone Quarry (4.6N, 8.4E) in its center.

Lumari Spills Fettermound (Omishan) The Lumari Spills Fettermound is the circular group of islands surrounding the town of Shinoko. You can reach this region easily by traveling the Lumari Ringway to the town of Shinoko (4.5S, 69.4E). Once at Shinoko, travel west to the numerous islands or continue on the Ringway to the SE outpost regions.

Vesayan Isles (Omishan) This region is located on the SE island group on Omishan, near Hakata. The largest of the islands contains the Vesayan Vault (8.2S, 88.2E). You can get to it by using the Vesayan Ringway (accessible from Hakata).

Rings of Oriad Fettermound (Linvak Massif) This region is located on the Eastern side of Linvak Massif. The fettermound surrounds the Oriad vault (16.9S, 7.5W). It's quickly accessible from Linvak Tukal (10.3S, 31.4W) and the Vesayan Islands gateway (17.2N, 92.7E).