2019-07-07 08:37:24

The seventh annual Summer Solstice Celebration of Alter Aeon still ongoing!  We decided to extend it for another weekend so everybody has a chance to finish the event quests!  The summer event will now end the morning of Monday, July 8th.

Here's a summary of recent coding updates we did in June:
- Critical  skills for the thief class were rebalanced, meaning that the balancing  of all six classes is now complete.  Skills and spells have been spread  out more evenly, and each class's abilities now require roughly the same  number of practices
- The  druidic mooncatcher skill is now fully developed and implemented.   Mooncatchers can be filled and then sealed, transforming them into  moondust, a spell component with unique properties.
- Areas can now  have a geology type set.  Certain minerals are more common in some  geologies than others.  This should help players find particular  minerals more easily.
- Shopkeepers that  randomly restock herbs will only load herbs from the sector they are  located. This should help non-druids find certain herbs more easily,  especially for jobs.
- Druid called  animals can be fed by giving them preferred foods. This helps them  recover from combat. They have strong preferences for certain foods, so  while a black bear may eat a wide variety of foodstuffs, a moose will  not eat fish, nor will a mountain lion eat fruit.
- Instead of  tripping, called alligators now perform a "death roll" against badly  wounded opponents. This attack does a high amount of damage and heals  the alligator a little, but it can only be used against creatures near  death that are smaller than the alligator.
- The thief feint skill will now lower and reset cooldown timers for flourish and crippling strike.
- It is now  possible to directly improve the quality of crafted objects with  profession points. You must know the skill necessary to craft the item  to at least 90% (or excellent).
- The news command now displays when double exp system events are under way.

Here is a list of code changes coming up in July:
- Sea-based boarders like crawling octopi, giant crabs and hostile merfolk will be up and going.
- Changes to dread portent and soulsteal to make them interact more smoothly and behave more fairly in groups.
- Streamlining job processes.  Jobs generate a lot of lag, and the solution is to create standing lists of mobs and objects eligible for jobs that updates every day, much in the same way that fame does.
- Making content from the news command to be visible on the main website.

Last month we opened the Valley of Sacerdotes, a level 41 autogroup zone for the plane of Crepuscula.

Redferne's Floating Palace and the new Dragon Tooth research center have been finished.   Everything has been releveled to level 28 and many new quests have been added to merge it all up together.   Players can talk to Gimthen in Dragon Tooth to start it all.  Our world builders hope to make several more quests that will aid the transition of players from Archais to the mainland.

Furthermore, work has begun in earnest to build the  Palace of the Dragon Emperor, which will be a multizone level 41 group 7  autogroup instance in Suboria.  Large groups of high level players will  be able to test their mettle against the elite soldiery of Suboria, as  well as solve puzzles in the catacombs beneath the palace.  Work on the  palace is expected to continue into late fall or early winter.

In other parts of the realm, work continues on the Nightmare Plane solo and group 4 zones, a new island for the continent of Gianasi and a new port city for the continent of Ramanek.  The goal is to finish these in time for the Halloween event.

Speaking of events, our next event will be for the Feast of the Sacrifice in mid-August.Stay tuned to our Youtube channel for more updates!  Check out our July update here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud7-7PqXOqE

2019-07-07 17:44:08

good to hear. I'm a long way from those upper-tier things, but how exactly does autogrouping and such work?

2019-07-08 03:18:00

bookrage - autogroup means the mobs in an area will automatically adjust to the size of your group. Autogroup zones only scale upward, so if you're in an autogroup level 36 group 4 area with a group of 2 players, the mobs will still be as tough as a group 4 area. If you go to the same area with a group of 6, the mobs will adjust to present a challenge to a group of 6 level 36 characters.

A.K.A. Draak - talk to me about any Alter Aeon questions or concerns!

2019-07-08 14:04:47

I feel like the game starts to lag (get slow, become difficult) in the 31-33 range, when a lot of players are fairly new to the mainland and get overwhelmed a lot. I obviously don't think the island's level of hand-holding is necessary anymore, but having a little more guidance/a few more areas to play around in at that level would be good. I've seen a metric ton of stuff being released for high levels and find myself wondering how necessary it all is. I mean, they have the entirety of the game to muck around in, whereas a lot of others don't. I'm also wondering if the game really needed all this Redfern rejiggering. I've run those places literally over a dozen times and they felt pretty good to me on the whole; when stuff like this happens, I struggle to understand why.
Now, obviously this doesn't mean there's no reason, it just means I personally don't get it. I always feel I peter out at about the same spot. I end up doing the forest west of Ralnoth, the Shadowmancer stuff, termites, and then everything sorta fizzles. The only reason I have a level 33 char at all right now is because I got a ton of levels in the 2015 or 2016 puzzlewood...god, I loved that place, and I don't even think I finished it. With the changes made to some of the mobs in the puzzlewood (triple lightning bolts, the constant eye beams, some of the other specs), it is just not fun to grind there for the most part. I remember almost dying to a single epic chain-lightning cast and deciding that nope, it wasn't in the least worthwhile for me.

That's just me though. YMMV, obviously.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2019-07-09 04:04:51

Jayde - the level of areas around Ralnoth have been recently reorganized to a smoother gradation.  Having finished with the Archais quests, Morpheus is going to be working on the quest linkage in the 29-31 range, chaining and improving the quest lines.

A.K.A. Draak - talk to me about any Alter Aeon questions or concerns!