We're closing in on Chunk #2, folks! We've sent this build off to QA and will be banging out the bugs over the next week or two. Here's the current patch notes for this coming build:

In-game Advertising
We’ve added in-game advertising to this build of Dungeon Runners. These ads are only visible to free players and they add a whole host of new functionality for our non-paying guests:

Bank Space
Free players now have one bank page available to them. Paying members now have three bank pages.

Stacking Potions
Minor mana and health potions now stack to 5, giving free players more room to hold loot. Major potions now stack to 10, making them twice as good as the free player potions!

Improved Loot Access
Free players may now use what was previously members-only loot. Of course, there has to be a catch… or else why would members be members? This is how it works: 75% of yellow items that drop may be used by free players and 25% of purple or rainbow items that drop may be used by free players. You’ll know if an item can be used because it won’t have “Requires Membership” in the tooltip. All items received from King’s Coin vendors are usable by free players – but are, of course, soulbound on delivery.

Secure Trade
We’ve added secure trade to Dungeon Runners, by popular demand. This new feature allows you to easily trade items with other players through a simple interface. You may not trade gold, however, only items!!!

Initiating a Trade
You can start trading with another player by right-clicking their name and choosing “Trade”. You can also type “/trade <player name>” to do this if you like typing. The receiving player will be asked to accept the trade request. If they do, you will both see a neat trade interface pop up on your screen.

Managing Trade
Simply drag items from your inventory to the area labeled “Yours” in the trade interface. You will see items being offered by your trade partner in the area labeled “Theirs”. Click the accept button when you are happy with your trade. Once both of you accept, the items are exchanged.

After making a change to the items offered, everyone’s acceptance is cleared. You must also wait about a second between making a change in trade and clicking the accept button. Finally, as items are added and removed from the trade window, you receive information about that. These features stop folks from pulling a fast one on you.

Trade Chat
The trade window has a special area where you can exchange private messages with your trading partner. Simply hit ENTER to start talking to them and hit ENTER to send the message.

The Trade Stash
When a trade is completed, the received items go into your trade stash. You can access your trade stash if it has items in it by clicking the “View Trade Stash” button off of your main inventory screen. If a trade is canceled, any items you offered will be found in your trade stash. Also, if you have items in your trade stash when starting a trade, those items will be automatically offered to your trade partner (of course, you have to click “Accept” before the trade is complete).

Chat Changes
We’ve made some changes to how world chat works to help facilitate trade and clean up tons of spam you may have been experiencing.

Market Channel
We’ve added a new world-wide market channel that you can use to offer items for trade. You may only link items in the market channel – world chat no longer allows item linking. Access this new channel with “/m”.

Joining and Leaving Channels
You can now join and leave the world and market channels with some fancy new commands. Type “/leave world” or “/leave market” to leave the world or market channel. Type “/join world” or “/join market” to rejoin the world or market channel if you have left them. Your channel preferences are now saved on your character and persist between logins.

PvE Balance Changes
We’ve made a host of balance changes to the game to help improve difficulty and increase skill usefulness:

• Holy Roller’s mana cost has been reduced.
• Shadow Bolt’s mana cost has been significantly increased.
• Shadow Lightning’s mana cost has been significantly increased.
• Shadow Word: Smackdown’s mana cost has been increased.
• Ice Shards’s mana cost has been significantly increased.
• Fire Bolt’s mana cost has been increased.
• Ice Bolt’s mana cost has been increased.
• Shields can no longer block magically-enhanced attacks.
• Blue Screen of Life’s damage-to-mana inflation percentage now reduces as you rank the skill up. This makes the skill more efficient and causes less mana damage at higher ranks.
• When under the effects of fear, your character will no longer get stuck running in a corner. In fact, your character will turn around in such situations.
• Monster attack rating has been increased.
• Defense rating for scale, plate and crystal armor has been significantly increased.
• Way of the Roo now passively increases melee attack rating by 100%.
• Non-combat health regeneration has been reduced by 33%.
• The time before health regeneration begins after taking damage has been increased to 10 seconds. This applies to monsters as well as players.
• The time before mana regeneration begins after casting a spell has been increased to 5 seconds.
• Ratsputin’s boss encounter has increased difficulty.
• Monster groups from Frump’s Misfortune and up have been improved for difficulty and entertainment value.
• Light in the Loafers now has a fixed duration of 15 seconds regardless of skill rank. Also, as the skill is ranked up, the cooldown is now decreased.
• All damage buff skills have had their cooldowns and durations adjusted. These adjustments allow you to use the skills more frequently than before. Upper ranks of elemental damage buff skills have been increased in power.
• All attack speed buff skills have had their cooldowns and durations adjusted. These adjustments allow you to use the skills more frequently than before. The overall strength of the speed increases have been reduced on these skills.

PvP Balance Changes
We’ve made some changes to the PvP experience based on play-testing and user feedback:

• Low-level PvP “twinks” have been nerfed. Their damage potential, health and remapped attack ratings have all been reduced. We highly recommend that you achieve at least level 10 before heading over to the PvP server.
• Skill cooldowns are now reset when the match begins and the doors are opened. This lets you adjust your skills based on who you’re fighting.
• Damage reflection effectiveness in PvP has been halved.

Skill Aiming Improvements
Most projectile skills have had their aiming code modified to help improve your ability to hit with such skills. If you use a position-targeted skill (i.e. Fire Bolt or Poison Shot) and are clicking on an enemy then your projectile will be aimed properly at the enemy you click on. Holding SHIFT down when clicking overrides this behavior and causes your skill to be aimed where you are clicking on the ground. Position-targeted skills should behave more correctly when aiming at a monster’s head now.

Several ranger skills have been modified to be position-targeted to take advantage of this improved targeting: Poison Shot, Fear Shot and Putrid Penetration. Rangers, remember that this change will allow you to shoot a skill simply by clicking on the ground (just like mages). So, be careful where you aim that thing!

Mythic King’s Coin Vendors
Some new King’s Coin vendors have been hidden throughout the dungeons. These vendors will sell you a specific category of Mythic item for a substantial King’s Coin cost. We’ve increased the stack size for King’s Coins to 100 to help you take advantage of this new feature more easily.

Edited by Stephen (11/19/07 03:57 PM)

Chunk 2 is ready to go to the PTS. However, we're still waiting on the database server to be rebuilt so that we can move forward on this. I have no ETA on that rebuild yet, although I'd expect it to be done very shortly.

steve

Chunk #2 is now on the PTS! Check the PTS forum shortly for a full set of patch notes.

steve