STICKY: Small Updates and Tweaks

[Mooncalf]

Two new stations have been added. Bullwood and Cherrydale (oldtown).

[Mooncalf]

* Humans no longer get hidden bounties from killing cops.

* Newbies must be at least level 5 before attacking cops (gives a warning so they know for future not to try).

* Newbies must be at least level 5 before attacking / being attacked.

* The city alert level has been halved due to the recent changes, as well as the increase in players. Please be aware that the percentage refers to the number of humans who suspect that vampires exist; not the number of humans who know it for a fact. The percentage decrease, however, has not decreased the chances of being attacked by hunters. So in effect, hunters are now twice as likely to attack, comparatively speaking.

[Mooncalf]

The stats page was counting decoys. It has been fixed, so don't be alarmed at the apparent drop in active users (and other things). Active users is still on the increase.

[Mooncalf]

The skirmish code has been tested extensively, with well over 50 attacks with each type of weapon, on targets of different stats.

A few bugs were found, such as one which was taking your equipped crdit card as your attack weapon, and therefore automatically failing you in the critical checks. Also, a typo was found in a variable name, which was causing all sorts of problems.

There have also been a few minor tweaks with chances to hit, crit, and severity of wounds. One such change has made it so that if a target is drained of blood or already critically wounded, your chances of critting them are significantly increased.

Please keep an eye on this, however, as I suspect there will still be a few problems.

[Mooncalf]

Breaking and Entering for human thralls has been fixed, and works fine. You might have problems getting loot, but that will be slightly different soon anyway.

[Mooncalf]

Killing cops now only raises your bounty by $1000.

[Mooncalf]

Feeding on fadewalkers in the Shadow Realm (who are not dead) has been disabled. There was a reason I opted not to include the planned "bless spirit" power. People shouldn't be able to return to life after 2 days.

Fadewalkers will be getting something a little extra to make up for this, however, because their powers aren't that awesome without it.

[Mooncalf]

Took a break from the oppressive dark evilness of the shadow realm overhaul, to make some changes to the bounty structure.

The reason for the changes? Bounty hunting was becoming the entire point of the game. Although I want the game to focus mainly on the masquerade, I thought it was getting over the top, with the recent trend of people just getting together on a chat once a night to hunt anyone who has a bounty of $1000, just for something fun to do. I don't want to screw over bounty hunters too much, however, so the changes might have nerfed them in some ways, but its not all bad news for them.

* Being seen feeding on a human now gives slightly less bounty-per-security point than it did before. The intention is that 3 medium screw-ups in 1 week should have you on the bounty list. 2 big screw ups in a day will still have you on the bounty list, but they will have to be bigger than before.

* Although newbies (less than level 7) are still slightly protected by the harsh bounty system, they are less protected than they were. This means that although you'll be getting less elders on the bounty list (from making like 1 single mistake!), you'll probably end up with a few more newbies, who constantly mess up (I do mean constantly).

* The bounty list now only shows people with $1500 or more bounties. Yeah, I'll let you hate me for that, but this might change back once there are more ways of lowering your personal bounty. I'll keep changing anything to do with security, as the community evolves and grows, so get used to it.

* The security level of the city now drops a little more each day than it did before, to account for the increasing population of the city.

* Summoning things in high security areas is still a huge masquerade violation, but not as harsh as it was before. Fadebeast summoning, for example, could give you a $2500 bounty for one single mistake. Now it's only likely to give half of that.

* Being seen fighting increases your bounty ever so slightly more than it did. The intention here is to forget about realism a little, and add to the gameplay. Work together to get people out of high-sec locations before attacking. Always be mindful of how public your attacks are. Adds to the strategy, I feel.

* Being seen fighting now has a much greater chance of alerting the Old Bill (British for cops ), and WILL increase your notoriety level with them.

* Gangster killing remains the same. As does cop-killing.

I'm sorry to any bounty hunters who are sad about these updates, but beta is beta, and I'm still trying to find a happy medium between realism and gameplay; between sadistic harsh shafting, and being kind to people who make dumb mistakes.

I'll post about the SR, death, and fadewalker updates as soon as they are done. In the mean time, you should be aware that getting yourself killed too many times will eventually make your character a weak, pathetic pile of useless (another reason for these changes).

[Mooncalf]

There are 5 new Ivy Bluff apartments for sale (floor 8) and 9 new cabins, in a new area, just south of the hunting zone. Check the real estate for further details on locations and availability.

[Mooncalf]

Big sorry to everyone waiting for updates. Life is pretty busy here right now, as I'm moving house. I'm working on a few things, and will be fixing more bugs this week. Please be patient with PM replies.