Patch Downtime All Servers - 2/6/2007

[Kethra]

From http://vgplayers.station.sony.com:

At 5AM PST on 2/6/07 all servers will be brought down for a patch, the estimated downtime is 2 hours.

Thank you!

[sherrjo]

are there patch notes?

[FnoRd]

Originally Posted by sherrjo

are there patch notes?

Here

[Nimikos]

So they do this at 3AM, no make that 4AM... except when they don't

*grumble*

Cuts into my morning playing.

[FnoRd]

cuts my afternoon game. And I got work tonite aswell...

[Greydog]

Here's the notes.

Vanguard Build 1737 Patch Notes 2/6/2007


GAMEPLAY NOTES
- You can now use rescues on allies behind or in front of you as long as there are not objects in the way (360 degree line of sight).
- Levitate physics have been modified. In open air, you now drop faster by default, and if you are looking down, you can drop even faster. You also no longer stop instantly (though you do stop much faster than our earlier beta implementation) and it should be easier to climb steps and slopes than it was before.
- AoE spells will no longer hit town NPCs.
- AoE spells will now acquire targets when the spell goes off (not only when the spell casting starts).
- NPCs that you have fought should now have their name color properly reset when you die.
- Added feedback messages to indicate someone is out of the PVP soft level range for awarding coin or infamy.
- Players now only have access to learned abilities belonging to their class.
- Enemies tagged by another player or group can no longer be charmed.
- When charming an NPC, debuffs and DoTs from players are now stripped.
- Varanthari Mount can now be used at level 7.
- Invisibility effects will now have the proper chance to wear off prematurely.

ADVENTURING
- Cleric – Fixed the particle effects on Renewal, you should no longer recast the spell every tick.
- Druid - Phenomena upgrades are now learned via use.
- Druid – Removed level 50 Phenomena from trainers.
- Druid - All phenomena of the same type should now be on the same refresh timer.
- Necromancer – Increased damage for claw grafts
- Necromancer – Removed broken grafts from loot tables.
- Necromancer – Added improved and new claw grafts to loot tables.
- Necromancer - Fixed the guardian’s taunt ability.
- Necromancer - Fixed the guardian’s auto attack
- Necromancer - Fixed the slayer’s auto attack.
- Psionicist – Timestop is now instant cast.
- Rogue - Completed the first pass on new rogue animations, particles, and sounds for abilities.
- Sorcerer - Amplify Destruction now increases damage by 50% instead of a flat 150.
- Sorcerer - Chromatic Barrier will now display 6 icons – one for each resistance type.
- Warrior - Taunting Strike II, III, and VI can now be trained.

CRAFTING NOTES
- Crafting Advisors have more information on specialization, tiers, and learning continental styles. More to come!
- Added additional Novice and Amateur armor recipes to Blacksmith and Outfitter instructors.
- Novice armor secondary component recipes are now given sooner to compensate for added armor recipes.
- Crafted robes should now have their continental effects properly attached.
- The cost of Exotic Goods has been increased.
- Fixed bug with Pocketed Artisan’s Cloak that was causing it to give more stats then what was displayed.
- Fixed issue with crafted bows that prevented them from working properly with some abilities.
- Halgarad blacksmiths now have to turn in the improved hammer for the last part of their novice quest.
- Striking dust is more powerful.
- Added a bunch of recipe scrolls to the work order rare tables for all trades and specializations.
- Fixed item level issue with crafted rods (were showing as 10 levels higher then they should).
- Spears of Hexes were corrected from spell focus to heal focus.
- The Kojan elemental jewelry quest is now non-repeatable as intended.
- Reduced the importance of station skill in reducing complication frequency.
- Corrected the description text on orbs.
- End actions have been adjusted and no longer show unnecessary item requirements.
- Arming the Shaletooth Tower quest should now ask for the proper items to be completed.
- The upgrade to bellows damage has had its name changed to remove any doubt as to who it is.
- Fixed armor recipe descriptions not displaying proper ingredient quantity requirements.

DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Envoy Wyria has rejoined the living, is no longer missing her thoracic and abdominal cavities, and will be dressed properly.
- Horselord Tarqar is now interested in parleying about Civic Diplomacy.
- Failure in Civic Diplomacy now takes faction in a scaling manner based on the skill level of the NPC… low skill opponents (skill 50-100) take very little faction, while high skill opponents take a large amount of faction on a loss.
- Speaker’s Mantle rarity increased to match other Collector’s Edition cloaks.
- Most Civic Diplomacy NPCs now have more reasonable decks between skill 50 and 100. Between skill 100 and 200 the difficulty ramps up, and above 201 the difficulty goes up dramatically.
- One Fell Swoop adjusted to match other Statements of its class.
- The quest “Unholy Dealings” in the Qaliathari newbie line should one again be working properly.
- The halfling quest, “The Face of Death,” will now properly force abandon when the 10-minute timer fails to alleviate confusion about incompletion.
- The Civic Diplomacy Trainers will now take two of any Hearsay to complete the quest, as opposed to only Blackmail Hearsay.
- Nalzen Hunt’lar will now give out the proper cards on the second Diplomacy Tutorial.
- Orcs and Goblins now have their very own set of horse quests upon which no one tries to kill them. See Governor Jalixfin to begin them.
- Corruption At the Embassy now has a corrected reward set.
- “Legend of the Blue Boar” and other quests now available in Three Rivers.
- Horse quests all have had their parley difficulties reduced to 50 across the board.
- Depressing Black Onyxes, Amber Rings, and Hilthorn’s Signet Ring are all sellable to a vendor now.
- Matters of the Hearth is now available to all players over 40 skill.
- Most horse quests are at a lower difficulty now.
- More quests have been added to the beacons in Temple of Dailuk
- Known issue: Some Informants are not behaving correctly.
- Known issue: Until next art update, some Diplomacy Held items will not appear on your character.
- Dark Elves - You can now learn the ability “Elocution” from Nalzen Hun’tlar in Hathor Zhi, previously he didn’t think you were worth the effort, but now he’s changed his tune.
- High Elves - Tanalion Atilmo, the Palace Seneschal, has decided to grace you with his wisdom of the Absolution statement. Go with the queen’s blessing.
- Gnomes - Praise the Underking! Upside Affairs has recently developed a new statement to use in their dealings with the upsiders. Commissioner Adnomid Epgar of I-4 will now teach you the Absolution ability
- Kurashasans - Ragan Fulgar is eager to teach you a new method of manipulating the people of Telon to the will of the Council. Ragan will now teach Kurashasan diplomats the statement Disillusion.
- Goblins - Governor Jalixfin has had enough of the Orcs bossing him and his allies around, he is willing to teach any goblin diplomat the statement Absolution in an effort to gain some semblance of control over his city.
- Orcs - Warchief Zowb is warchief because he is both strong and wise. He is willing to teach Orc diplomats the statement Resolution, to put an end to the bickering in the war council.

WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Coast of Ahgramun - Creatures in the Coast of Ahgramun should no longer show as being stuck.
- Coastal Graveyard - More named have been added to Siren’s Rock in Coastal Graveyard.
- Gardens of Xia’Liu - The levels on the creatures guarding the path leading to the Gardens of Xia’Liu has been brought more in line with the beginning part of the dungeon.
- Hilsbury - Many population tweaks in Hilsbury to reduce agro/assist radiuses and tweak mob placement, especially inside the mansion.
- Hilsbury - Reworked quest rewards and added choice rewards to all 3 of the library book quests. The books themselves are also now tradable.
- Hilsbury - Tweaked drop rates and spawns rates of named mobs, specifically inside the library.
- Hilsbury - Temporary disabled the vampire curse quest while it is reworked. The creatures will no longer curse you, but if you already have the curse the effect will remain and do nothing for the time being. Stay tuned for future additions.
- Items - Meteor Shroud now gives stat bonuses.
- Lakeview - There’s a new soloable quest in Lakeview, “Halfling Bandits.”
- Landsview - NPCs within Landsview are now slightly higher in level and have appropriate appearances.
- Lord Tsang’s Tomb – The Legendary Weapon Quest from Lord Tsang’s Tomb has been adjusted to allow players to select which weapon they want to upgrade
- Lord Tsang’s Tomb – The Legendary Weapon Quest from Lord Tsang’s Tomb has been adjusted to allow players to upgrade all the weapons, one at a time.
- Lord Tsang’s Tomb - The Legendary Weapon Quest from Lord Tsang’s Tomb has been adjusted to not take Lord Tsang’s Key if you fail to kill the five generals.
- Lord Tsang’s Tomb - The Lord Tsang weapon quest has been fixed so the Inscribed Pillars will now no longer turn and face the player when initiating contact. They will also properly DoT the player.
- Lord Tsang’s Tomb - Tsang’s five generals in the final battle of the Legendary Weapon quest line should no longer unexpectedly despawn while players are doing the event. If they remain un-aggroed for 30 seconds, however, they will despawn and the encounter will end.
- Renton Keep - Renton Keep trainers now share the faction with the rest of the citizens.
- Renton Keep - - Aniike Willems should no longer have a fairy floating above her head.
- Temple of Dailuk - Quest: Find Apenlippe: The journal is now available on Apenlippe’s corpse.
- Temple of Dailuk - Quest: Bird Hunt will not update properly
- Temple of Dailuk - Quest: Savory Meats: The meat will stop dropping for players who finished the quest, and start dropping again for players who have not.
- Tharridon’s Quarry – Leashing issues have been addressed in Tharridon’s Quarry.
- Tharridon’s Quarry - Aggro and assist has been adjusted in Tharridon’s Quarry.
- Tharridon’s Quarry - The hobgoblin leaders within Tharridon’s Quarry now take a break from time to time (everyone needs to relax sometimes).
- Tursh - There’s a new soloable quest in Tursh, “Saving the Baron’s Deer.”
- Quests - The quests Rare Opportunity, The Final Assault, and Word of Scale have been updated with the proper Travel Journal Entries.
- Quests - There are many quests in game that will now appear as “Small Group.” Previously, they were less accurately marked as “Solo” or “Group.”
- Quests - Several repeatable quests have had their rewards reduced.
- Silverlake - The quest ‘Zarian Netherbeasts’ in Silverlake now requires only one Zarian Netherbeast to be slain.
- Vault of Heroes - Cave of the Urugog in Vault of Heroes has had its difficulty increased.
- Veskal’s Exchange – Many Kaon around Kaon’s Ridge in Veskal’s Exchange have become small group content.
- Veskal’s Exchange - The graveyard in Veskal’s Exchange should be more in line with the level range of the rest of the chunk.

GUI NOTES
- All sections of your recipe book will remain correctly populated after crafting.
- Bug fix: New group members will now see the correct current group loot mode of the group they are joining in their UI.
- The Name and Level Min/Max fields in the Find window will now work as intended.
- Long ability names will now show up correctly in the ability book.

CODING
- Eliminated some extraneous whitespace that was appearing in the chat buffer.

~The Vanguard Team

[FnoRd]

Greydog you're spoiling them.
Wasn't my link good enough?

[Nimikos]

Down time is a real problem for a game that wants to be global.

No matter what time they take the servers down it impacts someone.

I guess they don't want to do rolling updates because the client would need to match the server... but seems like that could be overcome.

I stopped playing City of Villains because they go down almost every morning, right when I'm trying to get in my pre-work fix. Hopefully VG won't go that route!

[Nil]

Originally Posted by Nimikos

I guess they don't want to do rolling updates because the client would need to match the server... but seems like that could be overcome.

The main reason you don't do rolling updates is because people will jump to a server that's up and bog it down (as well as act like morons). They all have to be done at the same time.

[Roo]

Thankfully I'm in uni during the patch. Will get home in time for some quality VG play

And it's also good to hear that Sigil are releasing frequent patches.