Dungeons And Dragons Online: Weekly Development Activities (Dec 4, 2006)

Samera has made her weekly post on development activities:

In QA

These items are in QA and should be part of the next update, "Evil Resurgent".

General

• There are new tooltips for ability damage that give you information about how to recover from that type of damage. For example, "Your Strength has been damaged. Resting at a shrine will allow you to recover partially. To recover fully, stay at an inn or tavern."
• When blinded, floatynames will once again appear over friendly and neutral people. You will still not be able to see the names of hostile people.
• NEW - Players who have their name changed should not have to log out and back in for their friends list to work properly.

UI Improvements

• NEW - We have added an "invite to guild" button and an "add friend" button to the focus orb.
• The map of the Sands of Menechtarun has been revised for greater accuracy.
• The Resist Disease enhancement has the proper octagonal (passive) icon instead of a square one.
• The Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration feats have new icons.
• NEW - Fixed the blank space in shield examination.

Monsters

• Harga Fire Dancer and Yurrugh the Swift will now drop treasure from their correct treasure tables.
• The description for the poison Hulrak Slime Mold now lists all three abilities that may be damaged: Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma.

Spells

• Spell crits were not working properly on some AOE spells; now they will properly register the crit when casting and then apply the extra damage to all targets for the full duration of the spell.
• Disintegrate, Harm, Heal, and Otiluke's Freezing Sphere now penetrate spell resistance the same way other damage spells do.
• The duration of both Aid and Protection from Energy now increase at levels 11 and 12. Please note: their effects are still capped at level 10. In addition, the duration of Resist Energy now increases at level 12, although the effect is still capped at level 11.
• Barkskin was erroneously giving a higher natural AC bonus than intended. We have therefore adjusted it to consistent with p&p rules (2 ac, +1 for every 3 levels past third, to a maximum of +5 at 12th level).
• The Wall of Fire spell will now burn away webs and obscuring mists and can set burnable things (like crates and barrels) on fire.
• The Waves of Fatigue spell is now properly considered a fatigue effect (it can now be removed by effects that remove fatigue). Therefore, creatures (such as warforged) that are immune to fatigue are also immune to the spell.
• NEW - Disease effects, such as Filth Fever, now use their own disease icons rather than poison icons (this does NOT affect Mummy Rot, which has its own icon).
• NEW - Glyph of Warding and Glyph of Warding, Greater were inadvertently doing too much damage. Their damage has been reduced to what is stated in the spell description.
• NEW - The bard's Song of Freedom now has the correct icon.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

• NEW - The Quick Draw feat's description has been updated to reflect the changes made to the feat in The Demon Sands Module.
• NEW - Manyshot's description has been updated to properly include the scaling number of arrows rather than claiming it's always 2.
• NEW - Fixed instances where warforged immunities were still being called resistances.

Items

• Sale on Bless potions! 80% off!
• "of Backstabbing" weapons now do even more additional damage on any attack that would qualify as a Sneak Attack.
• Items that cast the various damage amplification spells X/rest now have a much quicker activation time.
• Mithral Armor now weighs 1/2 of the normal steel armor weight. This change will be retroactive.
• Newly found Filtration Modules will now have Acid Resistance instead of the previous +4 bonus to saves versus Poison. Filtration Modules already in existence will not be affected by this change.
• The effects on Tyrzza's Bane, a weapon found in the Invasion dungeon, have been modified so that the weapon will properly negate the Damage Reduction of Tyrzza. This is not a retroactive fix.
• NEW - The Circlet of Persuasion and Minor Circlet of Blasting have been updated to use new Circlet art.
• NEW - The Armor and Shield examination panels now show the arcane spell failure percentage for that item. Please be aware that bards do not suffer arcane spell failure if they are wearing light armor and casting bard spells. To find out what your total current spell failure chance is, please refer to the tooltip of the spell that you will be casting.

Quests

• When you gain 1750 favor you will now be told to talk to Nyx to get your reward, rather than the current, less-informative message.
• The Waterworks
  
  • Pets and monsters will no longer refuse to follow you across the bridge before the entrance to Clan Gnashtooth Lair.

Under Development

These items are currently in development and are scheduled for some time after the next update (either LOTD part 2 or Module 4).

General

• The elven female avatar now has the braided hairstyle available.

Monsters

• The Hobgoblins have finally gotten their long-delayed and much-needed shipments of bows. Now, wherever hobgoblins live, there is a chance they will have some archers amongst their ranks.