Today's Hotfixes:

• Hedge Maze is now off-limits for quick travel, and you will not be able to mark runes inside of, nor will you be able to recall/gate to existing runes inside Hedge Maze
• Fixed an issue preventing digging for Treasure Chests from completing in some cases
• Fixed an issue with trying to create a guild not working in some cases; if for some reason the creation of a guild fails going forward, subsequent re-tries should work successfully
• Should be able to engrave items on your vendors now

Hotfix from earlier:

• Bonded Pet skill loss from death has been reduced from 1.0 points to 0.1 when being resurrected by a Player, or 0.2 when being resurrected by an NPC

• Slightly increased payout of fabled carrots inside egg nests & on vorpal bunnies
• Vorpal bunnies will now have a chance to spawn as Enraged which will be tougher and have a chance to drop some easter items and more carrots
• Easter Paragons are now enabled and some mobs, mainly in dungeons, will have a chance to spawn as a Paragon which will have chances to drop easter items and carrots
• Fixed an issue with Vorpal Bunnies spawning in water or out of bounds in some cases
• Fixed an issue with Easter Egg Nest riddle answers not being accepted in some cases
• Each Easter riddle will now only need to be answered correctly once per character
• Note: Most riddles accept multiple correct answers to account for spelling or gramma variations

We will do our best to setup an Easter Invasion that can be self-activated by players using an item bought from the Easter Vendor, depending on available time.

We've added a new Item Preview option to the Veteran Rewards and Vendor Buy windows. Clicking this button will open a container with the object in it briefly so you can see what you will receive. Large items like hearthstones may not appear completely inside the container, we'll try to improve that at some point also.

• Fixed an issue preventing house owners from removing individual friends or co-owners in some cases
• Fixed an issue preventing players from using public teleporters while holding a Faction sigil. You should now be able to use Public Moongates, Ferry Masters, and the Skara Brae Ferry (saying "cross") while holding a Faction sigil, but the use of the Recall spell & portals from the spell Gate Travel is still prevented

General

• Daily per skill skill-gain maximums have been re-worked. Assuming the caps are reached, it will now take roughly a week to GM a skill instead of around 12 days. In addition to the reduction in overall time, the scale has been adjusted so that the first cap encountered will be in the 80s. Previously this would possibly happen in the low 70s.
• Any existing skill caps will be reset once on login when this update goes live.
• The bonus towards skill gain chance for being well fed has been slightly increased.

Balance Changes

• Magic book durability loss chances have been slightly increased.
• Melee stamina damage has been adjusted so that it requires more unmitigated damage to incur stamina damage. This means that low end monsters will inflict even less stamina damage when heavier armor is used relative to high end monsters. The net effect of this is that wearing heavier armor vs low end monsters is less punishing on stamina now and overall stamina damage has been significantly reduced.
• The max stamina damage that can be inflicted in one hit has increased from 8 to 10 stamina damage.
• Unwavering Stance base stamina reduction bonus has been reduced to 10% from 20%. This is to account for reduction in overall stamina damage.
• Aegis stamina reduction bonus has been reduced to 20% from 30%. This is to account for reduction in overall stamina damage.
• Unwavering Stance has a new bonus to weapon accuracy that stacks for a weapon accuracy bonus of up to 30%. This effect is halved in PvP.
• The maximum weapon hit chance with unwavering stance in PvM has been capped at 95%.

Quality of Life and New Player Experience Balancing

• Vendor training skill max raised to 40 from 30.
• Starting stats raised to 100 from 80.
• Additional new player experience books added to starter gear.
• Players will now start with 1200 gold instead of 500.
• Low end monsters will now offer better rewards for new players.
• The amount bandages players start with has been increased.
• Some monsters will now occasionally drop small randomized reagent caches.
• Self bandage timer in PvM is reduced by 2 seconds, unchanged in PvP timer.
• Minimum skill required to cure poison reduced to 40 healing and anatomy in PvM only.
• A base weapon accuracy bonus of 5% has been added vs monsters. (This brings hit chance to around 60% when facing monsters with similar weapon skill.)
• Swordsmanship, Fencing, and Mace Fighting now have more chance to gain dexterity.
• Stat gain chance is now affected by active gameplay bonuses.
• Scribes will now offer to identify magic equipment for a 500 gold fee.

• Added a confirmation pop-up when resurrecting pets, owner must be nearby to confirm (this is to address griefing of res-killing pets to cause skill loss to them)
• Stablemaster may confirm twice when trying to res pets until the next server restart occurs
• Prevented stabling dead pets, must resurrect them first

• Mining has been added to Dagger Isle mountains
• SOS maps are now enabled for Skara Brae and Dagger Isle regions

General Changes:

• Reduced price of Commodity Deeds
• Added "Prevent Unequip From Hotbar" option to Character Settings; un-tick this if you have trouble un-equipping objects from hotbar icons

General Fixes:

• Fixed issue with not being able to remove map waypoints
• Improved some spawns, especially dungeons, to help avoid monsters getting stuck
• Prevented trading For Sale items directly from player vendor
• Fixed an issue with dropping a stack of Shimmering Essence onto a magic book causing the whole stack to be consumed instead of just 1; now only 1 will be consumed as intended
• Fixed an issue causing the Prevent Dismount in Warmode option to not work (you may need to re-enable this in Character Options)
• Fixed an issue causing some produce/cooking ingredients (vegetables) to be the incorrect weight; now they should be 0.2 stones per unit
• Switched the dog's model back to wolf for now since there are animation problems with the model that was being used previously
• Fixed an issue with Trash Cans not emptying automatically & add floating speech to indicate when they are emptying

Sacred Runebook & Spellcasting Fixes:

• Added a target request when using Mark option on Sacred Runebook
• Improved Sacred Runebook window layout
• Fixed an issue with using a Runebook ability sometimes causing subsequent spell casts to auto-target erroneously
• Fixed an issue with Runebook Charge chance not being calculated properly for Sacred Runebook
• Fixed an issue with using Sacred Runebook charges erroneously consuming reagents and mana, as well as checking against Magery skill; now Sacred Runebook charges will not attempt to consume reagents or mana, nor will they check for Magery skill

Arena Fixes & Improvements:

• Added confirmation pop-up for leader to start the duel once everyone has clicked Ready
• Added pop-up reminder when clicking Ready to check the Restrictions; please make sure you are starting a duel with the proper settings for your character's skill set!
• Added Duel countdown HUD
• Added Duel Info context option to self-right-click to inspect the details of the duel after it's started
• Fixed an issue with not being able to use the Agility spell in duels
• Fixed issue with Duel Time Limit setting not being obeyed
• Prevented teleporting outside of the arena during a duel
• Prevented using Stuck option during a duel
• Prevented using Ethereal Mounts during a duel if Mounts are not enabled in the Duel Restrictions
• Prevented casting during Duel Countdown
• Prevented performing beneficial acts on opponents during a duel

• Fixed an issue with delays to occur sometimes after switching regions preventing subsequent actions or teleports for several seconds
• Fixed an issue with ethereal mount statues getting stuck in the internal pocket when dismounting until the next log-in

Added a new "Move To Target" option in the house decorating window to easily move objects around

Fixed an issue causing crafted items not to be the right color or the right name

• Fixed an issue with not being able to use the Orc Guildstone
• Fixed an issue with final charge not being consumed in runebooks
• Fixed an issue with not being able to properly craft the Upgrade Level 1 Treasure Map recipe for Cartography
• Balanced ice fishing chances & added chance to find an ice pick
• Added a couple more new items to ice fishing rare loot
• Fixed an issue with Fey Wand being created as a deed in some cases

• Balanced dungeon fishing chances once more
• Improved Vendor Search sorting & window layout
• Shadow Wyrm appearance updated to be semi-transparent like on UO
• Fixed an issue with Wrong & Ice dungeon entrances sometimes causing pets to seemingly disappear
• Fixed an issue causing pets in the stables to still count as an active pet in some cases
• Fixed an issue with being unable to perform any actions at all while paralyzed
• Fixed an issue preventing dueling in some cases or getting stuck during the countdown process
• Fixed issue with Duel Leaderboard not showing player names
• Fixed an issue, again, with some cloaks being equipped to the wrong slot (see the Item Fixer NPC to fix pre-existing cloaks)

The vote is in! Majority of people want the Vendor Search feature, and your wish has been granted!

We have optimized the system even further and have re-activated it with the single-stone design, and the Vendor Search Stone has been placed in front of Britain Bank once again.

We will monitor the performance of this new version and continue to optimize and improve it as needed.

Happy Mardi Gras! Make sure to log in on your accounts to receive a set of Mardi Gras beads.

If you were logged in already when the handout initially went live, you may have received a set of beads that didn't receive color. This issue has been resolved now, but if you received uncolored beads, you can talk to the Item Fixer NPCs (in Counselor Hall buildings) to have them colorized.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Vendor search has been disabled due to negative feedback from the players, sorry.

• Fixed an issue with pet healthbars not appearing in some cases
• Pet healthbars are now optional and a toggle is included in Character Settings --> General --> Automatically Show Pet Health Bars
• Pet healthbars will now be draggable and obey the Healthbar Style setting

The new Duel & Arena system has been deployed to the live server! Soon you will be able to duel with your friends and enemies. We will be working on setting up the Arenas for use with this, so you may be unable to start duels until those are setup. Check out a video of this system here: https://youtu.be/mSjxk_Pdj5g

After testing the Vendor Search feature for the past few days we have found a performance issue with it and will be disabling it for now.

Yew's Empath Abbey bank has been added! Now we will begin to decorate the interior.

Dagger Isle has had some adjustments made to one of the Points of Interest which are a work-in-progress

Great job Wize!