Announcements - 2011/02 - Blood From Stone
February 2011 - Patch Page
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Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=629-blood-from-stone&catid=85-2011&Itemid=68
Blood From Stone
Garwode twisted his head away from the bone chilling wind gusting down the icy mountains. After hearing the story about the huge stone golem smashing the ground in these icy hills, Garwode had gotten a group together in order to hunt it down. He was sure it would only be a matter of time before the beast began attacking the villages causing death and destruction. Garwode was determined to act first and end the threat before anyone had to suffer at its hands. Unfortunately, the boy couldn’t seem to remember the exact location he had been when he ran into the creature. Garwode suspected that the boy was simply too afraid of what might happen to himself or his family if he shared the location and had purposely refused to tell them. As a result his group of hunters had been traveling through these frigid hills for hours with no sign of where the golem might be.
Finally, as they crested over one final mountain, the group spotted an icy cave cutting into the side of the hill which none of them had seen before. Unsure of what might be waiting for them, they cautiously made their way up to the entrance with weapons at the ready. Beyond the opening darkness concealed the features of the cave. As they slowly inched their way inside, the ground suddenly disappeared, leaving them sliding down into the darkness below.
Shaking the grogginess from his head, Garwode rose to his feet finding the area he had landed in lit with torches flickering against the rock walls. While dusting himself off, he turned to check on the rest of his group, but there was no one around. Hoping that the men were simply separated and not suffering some worse fate, Garwode had to accept he was now alone. Setting out into the caverns before him, it wasn’t long before he found himself losing all sense of direction. The tunnels twisted and branched in all directions. Running past the smaller golems, which were clearly not the massive golem he had heard of, Garwode was sure he had gone in a circle more than once.
He had been running for far too long, his breathing becoming more labored, when luck apparently smiled upon him for it seemed he had found his way through the labyrinth. Unfortunately, the ground dropped away and a large barren shaft lay beyond it. While catching his breath, Garwode peered down into the depths. Noticing a tunnel leading off from the sheer wall only a few feet directly below him, Garwode carefully lowered himself down over the edge then dropped easily into the opening.
Only a short distance away, the hallway opened up into another large area. Curiously however, rocks were floating in mid air, like steps, leading up to a ledge on the opposite wall. Movement drew his gaze to about halfway up the floating steps. As he focused in on the shape, he recognized one of his fellow hunters who had been separated during the fall. He called out to the man and quickly leapt out onto the first rock. Carefully he jumped from rock to rock working his way up towards the ledge. As he landed onto the last step it became clear the final jump would be the hardest. The step left a large gap between itself and the ledge. Taking a tiny step back to the edge of the rock, Garwode crouched before leaping off of his front foot. Almost instantly he knew he didn’t jump high enough. Crashing into the wall of the cave, only his arms cleared the ledge leaving him struggling to find something to grab hold of as he slid down the wall. Just before his body plummeted to the cave floor far below, a hand grabbed a hold of his wrist and began pulling him up to safety. Pushing himself up to his feet he nodded his appreciation to his friend before they continued on through the cave.
Suddenly the ground shook so violently the men struggled to keep their balance. The noise of rocks slamming together began echoing through the tunnels. As the pair carefully made their way forward, the small tunnel they had been traveling through more than doubled in size and before them was the source of the loud crashes. Throughout the path ahead, heavy pieces of sharp stone were cascading from the ceiling above. There was no way around. With the spikes breaking off unpredictably fast, the men would have to grit their teeth and plunge their way through the deadly gambit.
They rushed forward with the spikes crashing all around them, sometimes only a few inches away. Garwode glanced back at his companion just in time to witness one of the large spikes impale the man, pinning him to the cave floor. Turning his head back to the path ahead of him, Garwode fought the urge to stop and help. Stopping almost certainly meant he would end up in the same situation and besides, it was likely the other man was already dead.
After reaching safety from the massive spikes, Garwode turned back with the slight hope he would see his fellow hunter emerge through the falling rocks. The look lasted only for a few seconds though as he already knew he was once again alone in these caves.
It was not much further before Garwode found what he sought. This was it. The golem must be stopped. The massive golem was headed right for him with his boulder shaped fists raised in preparation for a fight. The last thing Garwode would hear was, "I just wanted to be left alone!"Rollout Article
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Release Notes
Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=626-february-2011-release-notes&catid=85-2011&Itemid=68
February 2011 Release Notes
Greetings and welcome to the February 2011 release notes. In addition to their continued focus on improving Asheron's Call, the team spent time working hard to fine tune various Olthoi issues in addition to introducing Mouse Turning. Let's see what is new and exciting this month in Asheron's Call!
Mouse Turn & Movement
This month the team has been highly focused on putting in the ability to turn and move with your mouse. The change to incorporate the mouse has brought about a few other changes as well such as the ability to zoom in & out with the mouse wheel.
There are a couple of ways to setup the new mouse options so you can begin navigating Dereth. A red button has been added to the options under Keyboard Configuration that will remap some keys and adjusts to the recommended settings for mouse turning in one click. This button will also cause the right mouse button to rotate the camera. It's important to note that if you wish to return to the settings you had before, it will be necessary to manually change each setting back to the numbers that will be displayed in your chat window. Another way to setup the new mouse options is by selecting the "Turn your character with camera turning." on the Config tab of the options panel.
At this time there are a couple of known issues with the mouse movement system.
- In low height resolutions (800x600 and 1280x720) the mouse run does not always execute as expected.
If you notice any additional issues with the system, please let the team know so they can continue to perfect this new system.
Additional Notes
- Monthly Killtask updated.
- Quests of the Month
- Spear of the given heart
- Tunnel of Love quest
- Rose of Celdon Quest
- Added coastline textures to various areas.
- Added a Shadownether wand with happy-go-fun-time-purple and black-flame action.
- The animation for Empyreans entering into and out of combat while using a bow has been fixed.
- A New Olthoi healing kit has been added, novelty bandages not included.
- Some two handed rare weapons have been updated to have their own art.
- The two Olthoi Matrons are now easily distinguishable for Soldiers and Spitters.
- Double the effectiveness of Olthoi critical damage & Olthoi critical damage reduction "armor" buffs.
- Tweaked some Olthoi Soldier animations which include fixing a clipping issue during Olthoi Soldier emote animations and an issue with small incremental movements while in combat stance mode were retracted.
- Abdomen armor pieces for the Olthoi Damage Reduction set have been fixed to apply the correct set spell.
- Kaneth al-Evv will now exchange tokens for exactly 50 Mutated Olthoi Glands.
- Hunter NPC now rewards players who were extra enthusiastic in killing more than 10 Snow Tusker Leaders.
- Some creatures in the Gear Crossbow Quest have been tweaked in an effort to prevent the quest from bugging.
- The portal for the Renegade Living Weapons quest has been fixed so that Gear Knights can use it.
- The Zaikhal meeting hall now has an exit portal.
- Node Golems for Tainted Ley Line quest are now able to reward players once per day.
Letter to the Players
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Developer Comments
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