RoM – Patch 3.0.4 – Secret of the Temple!

On Thursday September 16 2010 the Frogster America will put online patch 3.0.4, Secret of the Temple.

On Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010, all U.S. Runes of Magic servers will be unavailable between 1 a.m PDT and 7 a.m. PDT.

Be prepared to receive our newest content patch: 3.0.4 – Secret of the Temple!

Your Runes of Magic Team

On the north american website there’s still no information about the patch, but on the European website we can read a little about it. There are some skill modification, the usual item updates, but the interesting part about the patch is the preview of the gold trading NPC that will be in Varanas. There’s one npc that will give diamonds for gold, and the other one will give gold for diamonds. There aren’t active yet, so we can only talk to them, but in the next patch, 3.0.5, the system should be fully implemented.

Runes of Magic Patch 3.0.4.2261
– The Mystery of the Temple -

New Features

• New 6-player Instance „Raksha Temple“ found in the Northern Janost Forest, setting new challenges to level 60 players:
  • Encounter 7 brand new bosses by using either easy or normal mode!
  • First ever Hard Mode included in patch 3.0.5 to challenge the strongest heroes of Taborea!

• Northern Janost Forest: Public Encounter
• Guild Castle: Phase 3
  • New Guild Castle Quests available!
  • Additional mini games in the guild drill grounds
• New Tutor System
  • When your character reaches level 30, he should go to “Lehman” who can be found in the Class Hall of Varanas from whom you can accept the quest “Great Instruction”.
    When enough spirit points have been collected, speak to “Lehman” and select “Exchange” to obtain different types of ability points permanently.
• New Profanity Filter functions
• New World Boss in Ravenfell
• In-game event: The Juice Festival
• Reactivation of the gold trade and C.O.D function using the in-game mailbox
• Preview of the Diamond / Gold trading NPCs, to be activated with Patch 3.0.5:
  • Can be found in the center of Varanas beside the mailbox
  • Agnes will be responsible for trading diamonds for gold
  • Cedrice will be responsible for trading gold for diamonds
  • Both NPCs can be talked to but will NOT yet offer their services. The reason behind this is due to the as yet unfinished technical aspects. Both NPCs will be linked to our database to follow all transactions by any character & account using the services.
    The activation and return of the gold trade is currently planned for patch 3.0.5 after all open technical requirements have been finalized.
    Additional information will be offered in a separate thread soon™.

Skill Changes

• [Mage + Scout]
  • Thunderclap: Added, “When cast on another player, it has a reduced effect.” Desc: A magic arrow binds the target for 5 seconds to his location at that moment. (If the target is a player, his movement speed is decreased by 40% for (depending on skill level) seconds.) (Effect is lifted if player receives damage)
• [Druid + Rogue]
  • Necrotic Wound: Added, “When cast on another player, it has a reduced effect. Desc: Requires 2 points of Nature’s Power. Reduces healing received by target by -2% for 20 seconds. (If the target is a player, the amount he is healed is decreased by (depending on skill level) % for (depending on skill level) seconds.)
• [Scout + Warrior]
  • Mental Focus: Fixed a bug where this ability was cancelled if it was cast twice in a row Desc:Recovers 0 focus points every 5 seconds for a total of 120 seconds
• [Warden]
  • Elven Guidance:
    • The original description reads: Unleashes your pet. Whenever within the next (depending on skill level) seconds your pet hits with Punch, Stab Wound and Beam Attack you can recover(depending on skill level) MP. (Pet must be inside a radius of 300.)
    • The new description reads: Unleashes your pet. If your pet hits with Punch, Sepal Stab, or Beam Attack within the next (depending on skill level) seconds your pet hits with Punch, Sepal Stab, or Beam Attack you can recover (depending on skill level) MP. (Pet must be inside a radius of 300.)
• [Scout + Warden]
  • Wind Attack:
    Fixed a bug to match the description. After the effect has ended it cannot be triggered again for 30 seconds. Known issue: there is a wrong String in the Skill description at the moment which says the skill cannot be triggered again for 45s. This will be fixed after a new String Update.
• [Warden + Druid]
  • Natural Spring:
    • Original: If your Nature Crystal’s Beam Attack successfully hits its target, team members in a range of 100 will be restored. “In addition, enemy players’ health will also be restored.”
    • New: This skill no longer restores enemy players’ health
• [Druid + Warden]
  • Spirit of Life:
    • Original: It heals all friendly targets within a range of 70 every 4 seconds. “In addition, enemy players’ health will also be restored.”
    • New: This skill no longer restores enemy players’ health
  • o Healing Ripple:
    • Original: Heals up to 3 friendly targets in a range of 60. “In addition, enemy players’ health will also be restored.”
    • New: This skill no longer restores enemy players’ health
• [Priest Item Set Skill]
  • Holy Candle Shield
    • Original Cooldown: 120secs
  • • New Cooldown: 240secs

Item changes & corrections

• When the Guild Castle Transport Stone is used in Siege War, the error message, “You don’t have a Guild Castle” has been corrected to, “You can’t use that here.”
• When Home-sweet-home is used in Siege War the error message, “You can’t use that here.” will now display.
• The ”Adventurer Weapon Enchancement Bundle”, “Adventurer Defense Enhancement Bundle”, and “Adventurer Accessories Enhancement Bundle” are now flagged as Item Shop Item
• The maid-created potion “Crazy Breakout” will no longer reduce the player’s aggro to 1.
• The Potions “Godspeed” and “Unbridled Enthusiasm” will no longer stack buffs.

Bugfixes & Changes

General changes

• A small part stuck out from the four corners of the guild castle walls, blocking the catapult during a guild battle. This part has been removed
• Added four Guild Castle Construction Points for the Stone Guild Castle Upgrade (two on the left and two on the right side outside of the walls)

Miscellaneous

• The following items received a “Daily Quest” tag:
  • Kalod’s Tongue
  • Demon Spider’s Tooth
  • Tifka’s Magical Essence
  • Sifted Ore
  • Rubbish of a Valley Dwarf
  • Straw Collected by Chelons
  • Kal Turok King Head
  • Foul Dragonfly Wing
  • Scattered Supply
  • Sea of Snow Supply
  • Mushroom Stem
  • Wolf Cub Tail
  • Cave Crab Spawn
  • Fat Worm
  • Wave Flower
• Changed description from “Open this Bag to” to “Opening this Package will give you” for the following Items:
  • Madness Potion Bag
  • Defense Potion Bag
  • Cleansing Potion Bag
  • Rune Obsidian Sand Bag
  • Ancient Spirit Oak Timber Bag
  • Thorn Apple Bundle Bag
  • Flame Dust Sand Material Package
  • Cyanide Sand Material Package
  • Rock Crystal Sand Material Package
  • Mysticite Sand Material Package
  • Mithril Sand Material Package
  • Frost Crystal Sand Material Package
  • Chime Wood Timber Material Package
  • Stone Rotan Timber Material Package
  • Redwood Timber Material Package
  • Dragon Beard Root Timber Material Package
  • Sagewood Timber Material Package
  • Fairywood Timber Material Package
  • Rosemary Material Packages
  • Bison Grass Material Package
  • Foloin Nut Butter Material Package
  • Green Thistle Material Package
  • Straw Mushroom Material Package
  • Mirror Sedge Material Package

Also, Yay for the gold trade and COD function making it’s way back into the game!

Sources:

• https://forum.runesofmagic.com/showthread.php?p=2438344#post2438344 – Patch Notes
• http://us.runesofmagic.com/us/news,id1529,patch_304_server_maintenance.html – Maintenance

Patch 3.0.3… again

Since the community was in uproar from the changes made to the mana in RoM, Runewaker decided to actually listen to it’s playerbase and they rolled back the changes they made. Here’s the news post from the RoM US website:

As most of you are already well aware, we released the 3.0.3 Patch a couple of days ago.  With the patch came some serious changes to how mana functions in the game.  These changes were implemented with the good intention of better balancing the game.  However, after seeing the community’s reaction to these changes and seeing how the change affected the live game, we have decided to reconsider the thinking on the issue. 

We have rolled back those changes with a hotfix patch and server maintenance late last night. Sorry we did not give any advance warning for this downtime.  We wanted to fix this immediately, so our offices in Europe updated the US servers before we could post news about it due to the high priority of this fix.

To help you better understand the thinking and intentions behind these changes we have a statement from Runewaker’s Vice President of Business Development Tony Tang.  You can read the statement and discuss your thoughts and ideas on the forum here.

Thank you very much for all your excellent feedback.  We greatly appreciate how much you care about Runes of Magic and the outpouring of concern over the past few days shows us what a truly great community we have here.  Please know we don’t take that for granted for a second.  Please keep the great feedback coming.  For now, we hope you all can go get back into the game and have some FUN!  It is the weekend, afterall.  Game on!

Cheers,

~ Lazlowe

And also, here’s the official statement from Runewaker:

Hello Runes of Magic Community.

In regard to our latest Patch 3.0.3 and the change of spell casting cost I want to give you an explanation about the reason behind all of this.

As many of you are aware, the spell cost has been changed with Patch 3.0.3 from a standard single value cost to a new formula. The new cost is a combination of a base cost plus a percentage of your total mana pool. The percentage can vary between 1% to 6% depending on the spell. This is not a class specific change as it does affect all spells (it does however affect magic users more).

Our reason behind this change was that as the game lost a lot of it’s previous challenge with a mana pool outgrowing eventually the cost of spells, therefore causing no small amount of our players having “infinite” mana pools. Once you no longer have to be afraid of running out of mana by not drinking a potion or waiting for the cooldown from drinking a potion, an important part of strategy in the game is being removed.

That would just result in spamming spells without the need to decide when to take that special potion and basic strategies of deciding which spells to use on which targets first would no longer matter. For example: some healers were able to spam group heal constantly without the need to watch their mana anymore at any level of difficulty.

The next problem caused by this old system is to decide how to design new content and still being able to offer you a worthy challenge. Do we design for the average players who will have to watch their mana or do we design for the super strong player base who does not need to worry?

After carefully evaluating all possible new methods our final solution was to introduce a percentage cost into the spells. This would ensure that players would have to watch their mana supplies and cast with some strategy in their mind. Players that have a larger mana pool can still cast more times than those who have less.

Thanks to the feedback of the Runes of Magic Community and Frogster we have been able to shape the game in the past and hope to continue this way for the future.

We are convinced about the logic and need behind the new way how to manage mana cost, but we have decided to take back the changes for further evaluation. So until we have finished improving the scaling system of how mana will be reduced we will restore it to the old ways.

Sincerely,
Tony Tang
Runewaker Entertainment
VP Business Developement

It’s nice to see that a company listens to it’s customers and actually react quite quickly. I think the idea was good, maybe it was implemented the wrong way, but the basic idea was really good if you ask me. High level mages and priest could just spam their attack or heals and never wonder about their mana. It adds a challenge. I hope they take the time to revisit the system and put it back in the game, it would be really fun, and I probably would start a mage or a priest, juste like the old times!

And to those who raged quit, see you ingame!

Runes of Magic – Patch note 3.0.3

(I’ll start off with my impressions at the beginning of the post, and I’ll put the patch notes after)

Patch 3.0.3 – “In the Depths of the Forest”

That’s a pretty big patch you’ve got there Frogster. They added a wedding/family/student/blabla system to the game, which provide the people involved with some kind of buff. To my knowledge this is the first time, anyway, it’s the first time I’ve seen it in a game. It’s a pretty good idea if you ask me.

Talking about skills now. Nothing too drastic there, sure, priest, mages and about every other classes that used magic will see their magic consumption increase, but again, it’s nothing too drastic. +1%, +2% here and there, nothing to riot over. It also seems like most skill have been made a level 50 maximum. Maybe they’re readying for a set of new high-level skills in the next patch, who knows ? I can’t wait to be high level to visit the new areas, yep… areas. For me Lair of the Demon Dragon, Gates of the Acropolis, Warnorken Castle, Janost Forest, and about every other instanced zone is new, since the only one I completed until now is Forsaken Abbey…

Oh, and level cap raised to 60… damn I just got to 30 on my rogue/scout >.<

Anyway, here’s the patch note! Watch out, long post ahead!