One of the back-end changes we made for update 1.04 was a complete data reorganization of how alchemy resources are dropping off monsters. Note this change itself does not affect which monsters were dropping which resources. The reorganization merely gives us better information and control over the drop rates. The original system was organized in a way which made tradeskill resource drop behavior prone to "Age of Resource" situations (cotton, and more recently Aqua Regia). It was also difficult to finely tweak drop-rates so greens drop like greens, and blues drop like blues. This issue became apparent after elevating the status of certain resources in Update 1.03, and the streamlining of alchemy resources in general. And as we move forward with new crafting content, it becomes increasingly necessary to enforce certain ratios between power tiers of tradeskill resource, which is used to fulfill the intended costs of recipes. And also that all resources within a given power tier are dropping to the same degree. Note that Aqua Regia, the first blue alchemy resource, is now being used in update 1.04.

What this means in 1.04 is that alchemy resource drop rates should make more sense in general. If two particular monsters of the same type drop the same resource, we have tuned the amounts so the name or rarity might give clues as to which monster has the higher drop rate. This sort of fine tuning was difficult under the old organization (especially in cases where a resource could be obtained through a cache and off the monster directly), due to tracking reasons that should no longer be an issue. Also, we've made it easier to identify and fix unbalanced drop rates before they crop up. This data reorganization was not applied to cloth and leather, but this is should happen next if everything goes as planned.

We have extensively reviewed this change, but nothing beats real players giving feedback after doing real behavior. Also, remember alchemy recipes have been producing their items in bulk since patch 1.03, which gives each individual resource more inherent value. What players should see on TestLive is that alchemy resources that were dropping too infrequently have had their drop rates increased overall, and resources that were dropping too often have had their drop reduced overall. This is relative to other resources of the same power tier (color). However, there were far more resources that were dropping too frequently (such as Wolf Meat) than too infrequently (such as Ebony Venom).

These changes should already be on Testlive.

I'm not quite sure where that rumor comes from. It's true that all mobs that could drop Aqua Regia could also drop City Recipes, but that's only because City Recipes are world drops. But it's not like Aqua Regia was a "placeholder." To answer your other question, Aqua Regia is used in the gem solvent recipe we announced for Patch 1.04, and that item does get consumed with each gem "dissolved." That recipe is in preparation for the gem revamp, since we felt it was necessary to give players the ability to desocket existing gems. (Yes, the gems are destroyed). We expect there to be a big market for the gem solvent.

Only resource drops off monsters. Resource drops off nodes are untouched by the change, since tweaking drops off nodes was never problematic. However, they may be tweaked separately here and there as we get more live data back, since it was a mechanic we introduced very recently (Patch 1.03).

This is a pretty subtle point, and something we have been working to address. Another change that was done for patch 1.03 (which you may or may not have been aware of) was expanding the possible drop ranges of all tradeskill resources. This was because we felt the old drop ranges, which were just within the same tier, were too narrow. For example, Wild Dagga can drop up to a level 74 monster and this has been the case since 1.03. Of course, it can also drop off a level 50 monster and serious farmers will find the lowest possible mob for maximum kills/hour. So we feel that increasing the range of daggamalt so it can drop above level 74 isn't the solution to the underlying challenge of how to encourage the desired behavior.

There are two things we are doing in the general sense to address the issue. The first is giving monsters in the Resource and Building playfields a slightly better drop rate (I stress slightly here). This was intended for 1.03, but only with this data reorganization in 1.04 will it happen to any real degree. This goes back to reasons for the change. Thus, over long periods of time it will be more efficient to farm alchemy resources in one's guild city instance. Hopefully this will minimize farmers of low-level resources ruining other people's game experiences. The second thing is releasing new recipes for higher level potions, which will happen either with the item rebalance or shortly afterward. With that change, there should be less of a reason to farm the lower level resources because the higher level pots will exist, and be more desirable.

Welcome back, NiteStalker.

Coffey,

First off, Happy Holidays to you Wanted to address some parts of your post here.

There is indeed something to this statement, but I think it's over-simplifying the situation. Just to get it out of the way, the drop rates needed to be fixed. There were a couple of weird issues that kept cropping up in game, such as the "Age of X resource" situations. And in general that resource drop rates in many cases just didn't make sense -- and this was fairly clear to players. Historically these issues would get solved as we found them, but we strongly suspected they were just symptoms of something larger. So we started going through the underlying drop organization with a fine tooth comb. By drop organization I mean the implementation of which mob drops which resource at what rate, and how we track everything. When we compiled a big-picture view that encompassed every resource and all the different ways it could appear on any given mob's loot table (much easier to do after streamlining alchemy), we realized the current organization was very much prone to obscuring information that we, as designers, need to know when modifying resource drops. This in turn caused behavior in game to differ from the intended design. So drop rates needed to be fixed (tradeskills depend on alchemy drops occuring at certain rates), as well as how we organized our information. This was a must. You can't build a house on a shaky foundation.

To get back to the statement, there's kind of a dichotomy going on. Conan was not conceived to be a game about picking flowers. Yet we launched with alchemy which uses flowers that players must somehow obtain. We also have gathering zones which are also the building zones, and the same maps are used for the border kingdoms. They're simply not laid out for PvE as the primary consideration. Yet PvE is how you gather alchemy resources. Back in 1.03 we revamped all the camps in those zones to accommodate alchemy resource gathering. But the PvE can never be like the cannibal caves, since the cannibal caves exist for a single reason, while the resource and building playfields have to consider many, many factors. We're looking at specific ways to make gathering alchemy resources in the R&B playfields more compelling, but the first step of course is to fix all the drop-rates, and the underlying drop organization, so we have a valid data point.

I would disagree that nothing was fixed. We found a lot of players were frustrated that they were doing level-appropriate content and couldn't get the resources they wanted for their green alchemy quests. Also, there were many cases where there would be a very limited number of camps in the game of the appropriate mob type and level to drop a white resource that shouldn't have been rare. The obvious solution is to add more camps, which we did in the R&B playfields for patch 1.03, but there wasn't enough zones in the game to accomodate new camps to give appropriate coverage for every resource drop at the old level ranges. We felt a better solution was a combined approach -- add new camps, and loosen the drop range.

We agree, and I think the crafting system has been on this path beginning with the changes that went live for 1.03. For example, we streamlined alchemy because of the game around it. With patch 4, we're introducing new PvP resources and adjusting the city building order to allow players to get the workshops first in the order. And we have much more planned, such as upgrading gem-cutting.

However, we still need to tweak drop rates when they're broken, and fix underlying issues. "Taking notice of the game"-type improvements need to all be balanced, and this depends on having well-organized data and the fundamentals right. By fundamentals I mean the crafting system taking notice of itself, which is obviously necessary to match the degree we want to increase the ties between Tradeskills and the rest of the game. Some examples from patch 1.03 would be: Giving skinning and weaving feats a purpose, introducing new kinds of armor and weaponsmithing recipes. And tying the various tradeskills together in interesting and compelling ways, such as the alloys and gathering recipes from patch 1.03, and the new gem solvent in 1.04.

Coffey, on a completely unrelated note I read a post where you were talked about changing the existing system for tradeskills v. building on top of it. I'm really of two minds on this one.

To be honest, our quest-driven tradeskill progression system has maybe one thing really going for it: it works. It does the job. We analyzed a complete revamp of tradeskill progression at the end of summer in 2008 to specifically make tradeskill progression more a part of the game as a whole, and we were left with a clear choice - do we redo existing content that works, or do we streamline and fix that existing content in order to focus our efforts on new content with new mechanics.

Keep in mind the gem-revamp is going to see all new gems, and the itemization re-balance in general is going to require new progression items for Armorsmith and Weaponsmiths. The exact degree to which the quests will change has not been determined, due to a couple of unknowns. But I can can say there will probably be some stream-lining involved. Certainly with gem-cutters, because there will be less gems.

I'm not going to go into details, but at some point we will introduce new feats for the existing professions. As this is how progression is defined for tradeskills in Age of Conan, and MMOs are certainly about progression. The groundwork is being laid for this now, and an informed player should be able to make some reasonable guesses as to how the existing tradeskill professions will branch out given the content that was released in 1.03 and what is scheduled for 1.04. It is this continuing player advancement, over revamping the existing advancement mechanics (how players obtain feats now), which is where we feel our energies are best spent.

We're evaluating a couple of options. Obviously, all new progression armors (the ones with the 3 slots) will have to be changed so they work with the new gems. This will mean a slot reduction. How to deal with armors already out there is a bit trickier. We have a very promising solution candidate, and I'll make sure to include whatever decision we go with in the announcement that contains the rest of the gem changes. That should give enough time to take feedback into consideration.

It's certainly not for 1.04, which is already on test-live. I can't give any details as to the whens of the item rebalance (and the gem changes which depend on the rebalance being in place), but it is currently a major priority and focus for the relevant teams. I don't expect the priority to shift until it's complete, but that level of direction is far above the scope of crafting.

Thanks for the heads up on Wild Dagga drops on test live. We'll look into that.

Just to be clear, is your concern about cut gems or uncut gems?

I want to preface this post by saying the plan for the gem revamp is pretty well finalized, but implementation and testing will always incur some design modifications, especially at the detail level. We indeed expect this to be true for the gem changes. Generally speaking, I think the right time to release detailed information about a new system is after implementation and internal testing is complete, and again, this not the case for the gem revamp. However, I completely understand players have concerns about the fruits of their labor, so I'll try to address them. But understand that until you see a detailed "official announcement" post, everything is subject to adjustment.

Also on a general note, I'm very excited about the changes we have laid out and I think gem crafters will greatly appreciate the new system if all goes as planned. This is my honest opinion.

That being said... in the case with alchemy, the sheer volume of resources that existed prior to update 1.03 didn't allow us to somehow exchange existing 'dead mats' in player's inventories with used ones. The gem change should be a lot easier on players in the case of uncut gems. Your Tier X uncut gem should remain a Tier X uncut gem. The name will likely change, and the color may change (since there will be less colors). That's pretty straightforward. The gem color will also be more meaningful, but that's something I'm not going to talk about that right now.

However, the changes to cut gems will be significant. The current plan is to remove the random element of cutting gems completely, and also greatly reduce the number of cut gems. By my calculations, there are 1,440 unique cut gems that can be created under the current system. Without unveiling the specific mechanics we will be introducing, our target goal is to reduce that number to around or under 100. As a side note, we also are investigating a couple of minor improvements, such as stacking cut gems. But there is simply no way to cleanly convert a set of 1,440 cut gems to a set of around 100 (given different numbers, and different mods on different gems), especially because the old gems simply don't fit with the new gem mechanics. Then we would have to get into varied approaches depending on whether the old gems were socketed or not. Should we go that route, it would take significant resources we feel better spent on the new system itself. We will most likely use a combination of vendor buy prices and simple methods to ensure players won't be left deleting all their old cut gems. But to be honest, we'll be announcing the details long before the changes occur. If we properly inform players, they shouldn't be cutting a bunch of gems right before the revamp gets patched to the live servers.

Old gems already socketed should be left alone (even if under the new mechanics socketing the equivalent gem would be invalid). I use the word "should" per my preface at the beginning of the post. But because the changes represent a proper "un-nerfing" of gems, players will naturally cycle them out for gems cut after this change, using the Gem Solvent we've created for update 1.04.

patch 1.04 is only giving 50ish natural regen from 3 feat points on defensive stance.

live its giving 100 ish.


not mentioned in patch notes so assuming its a bug.

I will ask the combat team if this was an intended change.

Now that the poke-able devs are coming back from their respective holiday breaks, I will resume poking them to find out what's going on with this Thanks for your patience and for keeping things constructive, and I hope you all had a great holiday (if you celebrated)!

Anyone else notice Fate is gone?

Just checked the status. Fate should be up on both servers.

Spawned Fate on PvE. She was alive on PvP.

Spawned on PvP.

Fate respawned on PvP and PvE.

Testlive will be coming down at 4:20 pm EST/21:20 GMT. Estimated downtime is 2 hours.

Testlive is currently down.

Testlive is back up! This update addressed several crashes, among other things.

A full list of today's notes can be found here :
http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/show...09&postcount=7

Update Notes for Update 1.04
**These notes do not necessarily reflect the final version that will be deployed on Live**

NEW!
* Dx10 in included in this update! Please be aware that not all areas have been completely optimized to work with Dx10, and some areas may still require further development.
* Cradle of Decay - Level 43 group instance, accessed through Field of the Dead
* Xibaluku - Level 80 group instance
* The Slaughterhouse Cellar - Level 80 single player instance



GENERAL
* All areas should now support multiple players zoning at once.
* Food and mana/stamina drink can no longer be used while you already have a buff of the same type running. If you want to change your food/drink-buffs you will need to manually cancel them.
* Alt-tab problems should be fixed now.
* An issue causing server lag spikes has been remedied.
* You will no longer briefly see yourself from inside your head when going from first person view into dialog view.
* The emote relaxed_lean will no longer cause the camera to shake slightly.
* Many server performance fixes were done.
* Fixed the female sitting animation.
* Added some new emotes: Adjust, cough, fart, picknose, and sneeze.
* Added cinematic camera movement when you are killed.
* More than 200 male and female social animations have been polished.
* When creating a new character, the random server chosen will match the client language if possible.



COMBAT
* Tab targeting will no longer target dead players, as requested.
* Characters will now make less noise while using Hiding ability.
* Defensive Stance for all Soldier classes have been put on the level as the Guardian starting at a base for 7%. With Improved Defensive Stance you can gain up to 10%.
* Defensive Stance will now also mitigate magical damage.
* Added stealth fatality animations. Now players will have a chance of doing a fatality on human enemies whenever they attack them from the stealth/sneak-hiding mode.
* The level up animation will no longer play while in combat mode.
* Two handed blunt weapons will no longer sound like blades when being drawn/sheathed.
* The Feared animation should now play correctly when you are feared.
* Players will no longer get stuck in the knockbacked state if they get feared during it.
* A small (1s) cooldown has been added to the Hide ability when it successfully activates. This will prevent a player from entering then immediately exiting Hide state if they were to press the button twice.
* Some pets will now be immune to crowd control effects. This includes: Pitch Pots, Living Firestorm, Living Thunderstorm, Blood Pit, Idol of Set, and Cyclone of Set.
* Fixed an issue where characters could be knocked back under geometry.
* When being knocked off a ledge or similar, the player will now land as if falling, and no longer be able to slide around on his back while getting up.
* You can no longer enter spellweaving when climbing or swimming. If you are hiding or crouching and enter spellweaving, you will leave that state immediately.
* Spells on your shortcut bar will gray out when you cannot cast spells in the state you are in (stunned, feared, charmed ).
* Fixed a bug that caused aborted multihit attacks to not show (client side only) the cooldown of the combo, if the combo would not have hit anything.
* Characters will no longer slide when moving immediately after performing a basic attack using bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons.
* Fixed the line-of-sight bug on tab targeting that made you unable to tab correctly to your next target.
* Dead entities will no longer be auto-targeted when your character faces them.
* Male characters will no longer twist their wrists unnaturally when firing crossbows.



CLASSES
Assassin
* Curse of the Lotus will now snare victims by 50% for the duration of the fear effect.
* Death's Gaze has a new casting animation.


Barbarian
* Updated the description text of the Impale feat to more clearly reflect the function.
* The description text for the feat Finishing Blow should now be more accurate.


Conqueror
* Added new particle effects to the 'Blessed Conquest' ability.
* Updated the description of To the Death to reflect its current functionality.


Dark Templar
* Devourer's Might will now increase the damage of Soul for our Feast I and Leech Life I.
* Epic armors have been adjusted to a darker color to better fit the feel of the class.


Demonologist
* Added new particle effects to the 'Planar Shift' spells.


Herald of Xotli
* The cost of Hell Strikes I has been lowered to 8.3% from 8.8% of your base stamina.
* Reduced the cost of Body and Spirit Wrack II from 16.2% to 15.8% of your base stamina.
* Reduced the cost of Burn to Death from 10.8% to 10.4%.
* All ranks of the Molten Steel Slash combo will now animate and execute slightly faster.
* Added new particle effects to the 'Phoenix Cloak' spells.


Necromancer
* All Necromancer pets should now play a "spawn animation" when they are first summoned.


Priest of Mitra
* Added new particle effects to the 'Hand of Mitra' and 'Soul of Mitra' spells.


Ranger
* Mezz Shots will now play the correct animations for bows and crossbows.


Tempest of Set
* Spell - Thundering Command has been renamed to 'Spell - Thundering Voice.'
* Added new particle effects to the 'Serpent Transmutation' spell.
* Blood Mana's displayed cooldown timer has been corrected, and adjusted to be more easily readable.
* Storm Field's base critical hit chance has been increased for all ranks.
* Epic Tempest of Set Pole Arms now add magical Tap Stamina instead of physical.
* Storm Crown/Throne/Regalia has been changed so that you will no longer inflict damage while you have Shield of the Risen running, so that you don't lose that protection. People in your team will also stop inflicting the pulsing damage if you have Shield of the Risen running. Additionally, people in your team that have Shield of the Risen will not pulse the AOE damage while they have Shield of the Risen running. You should now no longer lose Shield of the Risen while you have Storm Crown active.

GUI
* When you change your settings and the confirmation dialog box is open, you will now no longer be able to make any changes until you press Yes or No.
* Fixed a bug where clicking a link in a chat window would sometimes activate text input for that chat window.
* Only shift+leftclick now works for getting player info in chat. Rightclick still opens menu where player info can be selected.
* All options in video/advanced should have a tooltip (when they are not disabled).
* You can now disable buff icon minimizing! Option is found in Interface Options.
* You should no longer stop running when opening the map (when using the mouse to move). If you have the map open and want to start running, you should not click on the map!
* Remapping hotkeys using ALT and CTRL should work properly again.
* Buffs on other characters should now show the correct time remaining when you target the character after the buff has started counting down.
* Keybindings on the shortcuts now are more readable. Long shortcuts are truncated, and long combinations will be indicated by a "+".
* When you fail to teleport to the same instance as your team, you now get a proper error message.
* Player tooltips will no longer show through other windows (such as the tradepost or bank ui).
* NPC base damage type will now be shown in chat text.
* Resizing in windowed mode will no longer cut off the bottom of the screen.
* Updated and corrected the map for Khopshef.
* Remapping should now work as intended. The order of ALT,SHIFT and CTRL does not matter (e.g. ALT+SHIFT = SHIFT+ALT)
* The buff view will no longer report 1 extra unit when the time displayed is exactly what the time really is. (1:00:00 will no longer report as 2h, while 1:00:01 still does).
* Shift + click to loot is now following the same rules as normal looting.
* Potion effects - Chilled, On Fire, and Charged now have new icons.
* Loot options has a submenu - one tab with personal preferences which will be used when your character creates a team, and another tab which shows the current team's loot options.
* New Loot options : one setting for loot powerlevel (below which loot is auto-distributed), and one personal setting to pass on items below a given powerlevel.



GUILDS
* Guild cities with barracks now receive straw dummies on which to practice their form.
* The guild message of the day will now show in green with a tag in front of it to make it stand out from the regular chat text.
* Even if you spam guild invites, only one window will be open.
* When you receive a guild invitation you will always see who is inviting you, by name.
* Using an NPC to teleport to your guild city will now place you in a more appropriate location.
* You are no longer able to build two of the same building even if they are initiated at the same time.



ITEMS
* Treasure Chests throughout Hyboria have been improved and filled with more stuff!
* The Winterbrew potion now correctly boosts Cold-based spell damage, as opposed to Fire.
* Gold Tooth now stacks in stacks of 100, and the price has been adjusted slightly.
* New valuables have been introduced to replace the white quality equipment that drops from humanoid NPCs.
* Cloak of Champions is now searchable in the Tradepost.
* Darfari items have been distributed to more Darfari npcs.
* It should not be possible to trade non-tradeable items anymore.



MOUNTS
* Quick Dismount will no longer go on cooldown when activated while riding a Mammoth or Rhino, as this ability does not function with these mounts.
* Characters should no longer pop below the ground momentarily when dismounting in combat.
* Weapons should now appear sooner in the hands of mounted characters who perform attacks without first entering combat mode.
* You should not loop the mount/dismount/stagger animation anymore on observer clients (or your own).
* Characters should no longer experience rubber-band issues when being thrown off their horse.
* You cannot be staggered off your horse while mounting/dismounting anymore.
* The death animations for dying while moving forward when mounted should now work properly, and resurrecting other players who have died this way should be easier.
* Players should no longer be able to use their mount's special abilities while stunned.
* Cape animations have been adjusted so they no longer intersect with horses while mounted.
* The speed of draw/sheathe animations while mounted has been increased.
* Fixed male animations for drawing/sheathing crossbows while mounted.
* When entering a zone where your mount is prohibited, your mount buff is removed, along with its effects.



NPC/MOBS
* NPCs that deliver a killing blow with any of their combos should now have a chance to proc a fatality on their victim.
* Mounted NPCs should now play their attack animations correctly.
* Dark Beasts will now recover more quickly from knockbacks.
* All NPCs of the 'Ranger' class will now play a unique combo-animation when executing their combos.
* Three rival mercenary groups have begun camping in the Cimmerian end of the Border Kingdoms.
* Amphitheatre of Karutonia: It is now no longer possible to provoke infinite spawns from the summoning portal.
* Amphitheatre of Karutonia: Fixed the collision around the Frostfather.
* Amphitheatre of Karutonia: Tigers should no longer stick out of their cages.
* Black Ring Citadel: Seruah now has two new spells. Adds should no longer evade when they can't reach their target. Fixed a bug where Ripped From Within triggered when it was not supposed to.
* Black Ring Citadel: Changed the name of Chatha's root spell to "Unnatural Atrophy". It now targets a random soldier within range.
* Black Ring Citadel: Added a particle effect when Chatha changes into demon form.
* Black Ring Citadel: Fixed a bug that wouldn't let Chatha change into demon form.
* Black Ring Citadel: Renamed Chatha's single target knockback in phase 2 to "Savage Toss".
* Black Ring Citadel: Reduced the power of the Strength in Numbers spell.Visualized the source of the buff with a particle effect.
* Black Ring Citadel: Sabazios' adds now do poison damage.
* Border Range: Fixed an issue that caused some Dark Beasts to slide around in a static pose while walking back to their original position.
* Ice Dragon Cave: Chill Crawler Shadowbearers now have casting animations.
* Ghanatan Wardogs no longer drop human heads.
* Kheshatta: Chenzira now offers the same merchandise as the other Master Food and Drink vendors.
* Kyllikki: Kyllikki's minions should now wait a short period after spawning before they attack players.
* Old Tarantia: Lordana has been slightly moved to make her quest indicators more visible.
* Poitain: The Abyssal Lich should now properly follow players during combat.
* Spider Cavern: A Rare Delicacy - The mushrooms are now correctly placed.
* Thunder River: General Lupercus' dialog now matches his voiceover.
* Thunder River: A new merchant has been placed in the Thunder River Palisades.
* Tortage: Underhalls - Askia is now working as intended in epic and normal mode.
* Villa Camillus: Deformed Creation and Twisted Magus will now drop proper loot.
* Wild Lands: Viterion and Avitus, the teleport NPCs, are now moved away from each other.
* Wild Lands: Fixed some issues with mobs roaming inside geometry.
* Wild Lands: The bears have been moved a bit south of the Wild Plains rez point.
* Wild Lands: The Tortured Man has left the Wild Lands.
* Wild Lands: Keyx is now correctly placed.
* Yakhmar: Reduced Yakhmar's Wyrmlings magical and poison damage reduction. Increased the time between spawns of Yakhmar's Wyrmling.
* Yakhmar: Yakhmar now displays a buff when lullaby can trigger.

PVP/ MASSIVE PVP
PvP Minigames
* The new minigame signup interface shows the four different minigames players can sign up for. It shows how many players are currently signed up for that particular minigame (players in the same tier as the player, regardless of apprenticeship), as well as allows players to sign up for any of the possible minigames (whichever starts first).
* Annihilate Opposing Team: You will no longer get the capture message if you walk into the north or south quarter before the match starts.
* Annihilate Opposing Team: The healing point in the middle of the playfield will again heal anyone that stands on top of it.
* Annihilate Opposing Team: The health of the resurrection totem was increased.
* Capture the Skull: Renamed the Flag to Skull.
* Capture the Skull: Decreased the amount of skull captures to win from 5 to 3.
* When one of the sides leaves the minigame, this will no longer always result in a tie.
* More than 11 players in a minigame will no longer expand the gui erroneously - the overlay will hide instead.


PvP Notoriety
* Murderer Pathfinders should no longer give you two identical travel options.
* Removed all cooldowns and added some XP to all Redemption quests.
* You or your pets will not splash damage neutral npcs anymore.
* Being killed will not remove the killer from diminishing returns.
* When being attacked in PvP, a player will no longer receive the criminal buff for attacking his opponent's healer, regardless of the level of the healer.
* The criminal buff will no longer be refreshed by attacking a low level opponent and then switching to a higher level target.
* Resource items will now have a chance of dropping in PvP.
* PvP droppable resources are now marked as such in their mouseover tooltip.


Massive PvP
* Siege participants should no longer unnecessarily get teleported out.
* The Massive PvP tab can now be opened without being in a guild and without being on the Massive PvP playfield.
* The ballista wont play an explosion particle on each player near the impact any more. The impact visual effect has been changed to be more appropriate for a ballista impact. This should improve performance during sieges.
* Two Wayfarers of Asura have decided to observe the conflict in the Cimmerian end of the Border Kingdoms.
* The losing guild in a siege battle will no longer be able to immediately build a keep anymore.
* The winner of a siege battle should always be reported correctly.
* While participating in a siege, the defending players will now have a red cloak and the attackers will have a blue cloak, for the duration of the battle.
* The PvP area marker should now always appear on the map, as intended. The minimap will show the name of the guild that owns a Battlekeep, and when the next window of vulnerability is.
* The Catapult and Trebuchet particle effect was updated so that it does not play a particle effect on every player that gets hit by the explosion.
* If a player leaves a group during Massive PvP they now have 60 seconds to find a new group. This should make it easier for players to organize players between the two different raids.
* You can no longer interact with NPCs of a Massive PVP City after you lose it to another guild.



QUESTS
* Many grammatical errors and waypoints have been corrected for quests worldwide.
* Several new transition quests for level 40 players have been added. Talk to Peison in Old Tarantia, Mmnemnes in Khemi, Conohmer in Conarch, Gern in Lacheish Plains, Thesilea in Poitain, or Dhumib in Purple Lotus.
* Atzel's Approach: Kidnapping and Torture - The palisades now have a shorter cooldown.
* Castle of King Conan: Fixed looping dialog in the conversation with Pallantides.
* Kheshatta: Tarantian Armorsmith - Quest reward items updated to accommodate every classes' needs.
* Khopshef: Destiny Quest 30, The Phoenix of the South - The goals for the first part of the quest have been clarified. The player will now be required first to gather all the lotus, then to place it on the altar. The cutscene will play only at this stage.
* Khopshef: Redemption Quest, Path of Venom - Scorpions updating the quest are found throughout the play area, removing the necessity of a goal marker radius.
* Khopshef: Redemption Quest, Ruthlessness - The 30 heads are now properly removed when the heads are put on the Stone.
* Khopshef: Redemption Quest - Redeemer Drak will from now on allow Stygians to redeem themselves in Khopshef - if they want to.
* Poitain: Chastising the Spirit Children - Fixed quest so spirit stones will no longer disappear before they should.
* Purple Lotus Swamp: Followers of a Crocodile God - The pendants will no longer disappear before they should.
* Purple Lotus Swamp: Healing the Wounds of the Swamp - Replaced a goal reference to 'Oasis Water' with the correct 'Moss'.
* Thunder River: Keeping the Land Safe - Removed the waypoint, as it covered half the playfield.
* Tortage: Destiny Quest Soldier, Awakening III - Some visuals have been added to the cutscene Arrested by Guards.
* Wild Lands: Hidden Treasures - Trade has been reduced to 15 items, as intended.
* Wild Lands: A Vote's Worth - Quest is no longer shareable.
* Wild Lands: Melis Root flowers will no longer float off the ground.
* Wild Lands: The Demon in the Tree - This quest now works as intended.
* Ymir's Pass: Heart of Atali - Increased the powerlevel of the necklace reward, and increased the variety of neck-item options.
* Ymir's Pass: Gaze of Crom - The progress bar for laying the Rabbit Snare, and the snare itself, will now have the appropriate name. You will now receive a more logical quest reward.
* Ymir's Pass: The Twisted Skein - Renamed the Ancient Dagger quest reward to Preternatural Dagger.
* Ymir's Pass: The Calm Before the Storm - Removed a waymarker that only led to confusion.



TRADEPOST
* Searches now allow - and ' and `



TRADESKILLS
* The minimap will now update a resource node's icon if it is being used by a player.
* The result items of tradeskill recipes now display a stack size if they produce more than one item.
* You should now always see the correct "Tradeskills" category for quests in your quest journal.
* Black Soulstaff, Mottled Cane, and Stygian Deathcoil Vesture recipes items should teach you the correct recipes.
* When removing/unlearning tradeskills, other feats/spells will not be affected anymore.
* Chopping wood should now take the same amount of time as other harvesting skills.
* If you unlearn a tradeskill, the cooldown will always be removed.
* New Woodcutter recipes are now dropping from the following bosses: Vanir Shaman, Diabolist Aino, Metir-Phumon, Occultist Codril-Kau, Crazed Troglodyte Chief, and Atzel General.
* Gemcutting: You should now always have your quest update, without zoning first, after creating a gem. You should also always be able to create gems without zoning first.
* Weaponsmith: Moonsteel Steel Dart goal name is now Moonsteel Throwing Knife.



WORLD DESIGN
* Many small adjustments to decrease the chance of getting stuck on collision have been done worldwide.
* Fixed a few cases where the player could get snagged on collision mesh edges.
* The water in now back in Wild Lands of Zelata.
* Atzel's Approach: Some climbing areas have been improved.
* Black Ring Citadel: The entrance door should now properly open after wiping at Ahazu-Zagam.
* Khopshef Province: The collision of the temple floor has been fixed. Players should no longer sink into the ground.
* Old Tarantia: Removed excess collision between the PvP vendors.
* Old Tarantia: When a player enter Old Tarantia from the Outflow Tunnels they will end up on a more logical place.
* Thunder River: Placed new discoverable resurrection points.
* Removed an invisible wall in the Inn in the Wild Lands.

Player Cities
The order of the Player City buildings has been adjusted. This should make it easier for players to get the trade skill buildings while the overall difficulty of getting a full tier 3 city should remain the same. We have also introduced an element of player choice, where players can choose which of the tradeskill buildings to build first.

(This change was supported by code changes in the Dec 9th downtime, but the change itself is estimated to be included in Update 1.04).

TESTLIVE
* Fate (the leveling/boosting NPC located outside of Tortage) will also now hand out appropriate potions for your level to aid you in your testing.



COMBAT
* Spellcasters should no longer slide if moving after the casting bar for a spell has completed, but before the animation is over.
* Fixed a bug that sometimes caused your characters to slide on their feet for a short while after casting certain spells.
* Correct damage is now shown when attacking destructibles.
* You should notice fewer "weird" fatality situations where you decap someone with a hammer or impale them on a axe!
* Quick-dismount for rogues will now dismount characters away from nearby obstacles, instead of always dismounting on the right-hand side.



GUI
* Offline Lists will be shown when activated even after reopening the friend/guild window.
* Some minor Changes to Text/Color of the friend/guild window.
* Added tutorial for Resource Gathering in PvP areas.



NPC
* Serpent's Head Inn: Female courtesans should no longer warp around. That ability is reserved for Starships!



QUESTS
* Thunder River: The Beast Stirs - The Ancient Gateway in Thunder River now has a correctly set waypoint.



PVP
PvP minigames
* When declining to join a minigame after minigame has started, you are no longer flagged as coward.
* You now actually have 30 secs to decline/accept to join a minigame when it has started.


Massive PVP
* Border Kingdoms, Cimmerian End now has some additional resurrection points.
* It is no longer possible to heal siege weapons.

NEW!
The Entrance to the Cradle of Decay is available! You can find it in the Field of the Dead, southeast of the Crossroads rez point, next to the npc named Xanton.


GENERAL
* Corrected a few issues to improve performance.


MOUNTS
* Mammoth Riding Training can now be bought from any Stable Master.


NPCS
* Black Ring Citadel - Enemies in Black Ring Citadel should now patrol as intended.
* Tarantia Sewers : The Main System - The Sewer King is now immune to crowd control.
* The exotic valuables dropping from scorpion bosses in the Scorpion Cave are now appropriately flagged as green to allow for a group-wide Greed roll on these items.
* New loot has been assigned to all animals, replacing the previous loot.


PVP
* Players can now get the other two redemption quests from Flanna in Field of the Dead, after leaving the dialog.


Massive PvP
* The siege timer should now display normally.
* Fixed a bug where a player who entered the area after the battle began would not see a score update.


TRADESKILLS
* Reevaluated drop rates of all Tradeskill Resources.

GENERAL
* Fixed several causes of crashes.
* Dx10 : Client should no longer crash when Weapon Trails are rendered (when player attacks/combat).
* The Totem of Origins should be working now.
* Magic Damage should be applied now correctly to destructable objects.
* Dx10 : The slider for Memory system has been disabled in Dx10.
* Character Creation now supports non-English characters.
* Corrected some invisible body parts.
* Ambient Occlusion is defaulted to "disabled".



COMBAT
Soldiers
* Updated the description of Defensive Stance and the Improved Defensive Stance feat to reflect their new function.



MASSIVE PVP
* PvP resources no longer regenerate during a siege.



PVP MINIGAMES
* Totem Torrent - Various gameplay changes have been made to improve the flow and speed of this minigame. The optional resurrection points have been removed. The capture areas have been moved into the north and south buildings (to the location of the old resurrection points). If you capture one of these new areas, your totem will be much more durable.

I have been trying to engage in combat since the latest testlive patch. Every time, no matter the zone, I engage in combat the game freezes and then crashes. Is anyone else getting this bug? If so, is there a resolution? I really wanna play with dx10!!!

Yes, this is currently a known issue, and should be corrected soon.

Stun breaks on its own damage if you using basically any damage buff and have it feated.... vs clothies and light armor at least.

Hate to say it but this spell might be better off not scaling with +magic dmg... or it should be CC dmg break immune.

Edit:

Thinking about this for a minute... I don't know why I should even have to suggest that a stun that does damage and can be feated to do more damage should not scale with +magic.... its crap! This is a damage spell that stuns, and shouldn't break on damage, plain and simple.

I will submit your feedback on this issue to the devs

The new riding training for the mammoths are in but they have no wording of what they are. They are just the picture of them and then nothing written beside them like the Basic riding training. Noticed in Conarch Village and Khemi forgot to check OT.

Thanks for the report This is a known issue, and should be corrected in an upcoming build.

can anyone put the location of the dungeon in the FOD here?

til now there is no marker on the map.

http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/show...74&postcount=6

From the update notes :
NEW!
The Entrance to the Cradle of Decay is available! You can find it in the Field of the Dead, southeast of the Crossroads rez point, next to the npc named Xanton.

Would it be possible to have the nodes in any given instance start with 100% (or some other value than 0%) when the instance is created?

You've very accurately described the reason why harvesting nodes start at 0% instead of 100%. Now on to your suggestion. Currently, if you are the last person to leave an adventure play-field, after a set amount of time (couple of minutes), the server shuts down the play-field. This is a server optimization to prevent a situation where we have a large number of instances alive that nobody is playing in. I believe what you are suggesting is increasing the time an empty play-field stays alive. In this case, server efficiency is the trump card.

But it isn't just the last zone of its type. For example, there are many, many copies of the Resource and Building playfields to support guild cities. Think about what would occur if every one of those instances were left alive for an hour longer than necessary, as many players gather in their guild city instance. Everything that happens in those instances (think stuff like monster AI) takes server resources.

hi after the last downtime (no changes on my system)
vista 64 bit
GF8800GTS
intelE6600 @ 3G
bodyparts of NPC and player chars are missing

This is a known issue, and should be corrected in the next build coming to Testlive.

Now after last update i cant login with DX9 have to use DX10,problem with that is my fps is between 5-20.

The horse is se true on some occasions, from time to time you se that the back get "foggy" (its grey) and then you se its front legs, the worst was that i cant ride true Khemi, had to jump off horse and walk. (reported that before but its very enoying)

When 2 mobs started to chase me in Swamp the game crashed. (opps missed the stickey about ati g-card)

Thank you for your report. The devs are looking into all of these issues