ACR v1.87 Release
Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 5:46 am
The latest release of the ALFA Core Rules has been prepared for release, and is available to the ALFA servers, who we can expect to see upgrading this weekend.
As always, you can find the release notes of this and previous versions linked from the technical documentation page, and this particular release's links are here.
Highlights from this release include:
Performance: As always, there is a laundry list of fixes and enhancements that are difficult to enumerate in a change log, due to their placement behind the areas visible to end users. Servers continue to operate faster and with more stability, and capacities of servers to communicate with one another are improved. The big one that users will notice is a prompting to link your gamespy IDs to your Drupal and Forum IDs-- it will be a single clickable link, which will also prompt you to verify that you're an adult for IA's purposes, and will allow us better control of things like Temporary Retirement interfaces in the future.
RP Spells: We've added a lot of them. Most of them don't provide any mechanical effects (except Waterbreathing, which works with our swimming system), but they spare us the ambiguity of whether that Magic Missile you prepared was, in fact, Jump. This will also help those spontaneous spellcasters who cast spells that NWN2 didn't provide for us originally keep track of their spells known. In addition, the implied increase in supply of level 0 spells means that Sorcerers and Favored Souls will get to learn up to their class' actual maximum of 9 level 0 spells when they reach the appropriate level to do so.
Invocations: Almost every invocation has changed, which brings Warlocks extremely close to an expected stable "end state" for the class, more closely mirroring the descriptions in <i>Complete Mage</i> and <i>Complete Arcane</i>. While the amount that we've been able to accomplish with the class isn't enough to lift the restriction on new warlocks, the changes are significant enough that our remaining warlocks can expect a much-higher degree of stability in the function of the class, and could consider our years-old promises to make changes to the mostly fulfilled, with the expectation that any required fixes would go into the next version of the ACR before work on the class is called complete.
Combat Expertise: An old thorn in our DMs' and PA's sides, in the monitoring and enforcement of proper use of Combat Expertise, is now handled entirely by script. The feat now disables itself in response to spellcasting and does not resume its protection until the string of spells cast is complete. In addition, its AC bonus is capped by base attack bonus, it bears a server-side cooldown of 6 seconds (which is not vulnerable to the bugs associated with client-side cooldowns, as we see with things like Subdual Mode), and its AC type has changed from "untyped" to dodge-- which means that the only time people who use combat expertise can count on its bonus is when they're actually fighting things with weapons. I've verified with the PA that this handles all known enforcement issues with the feat, and should shut it down as a source of disputes and (hopefully) reduce its companion drama.
Voice Throwing: The newest ACR has a new tool to help DMs send text to distant NPCs, and to hear the things that those NPCs would hear. A DM may now select an NPC and enter # followed by a number (such as "#1") to specify that as a target for voice throwing, and then may use that number like a chat channel to speak through it (such as "#1 Hello world!"). In addition, if a DM leaves the general area where a so-marked NPC is, he or she will start to receive messages in his or her server window whenever the NPC hears something, such as chat in the general vicinity. This only works on NPCs, and DMs may not throw their voices through PCs.
Of course, the change log will be more specific and verbose on what exactly changed, and there are many smaller niblets of useful in the mix (like subdual damage no longer bugs weapons with -5 damage, and will in fact repair previously-bugged weapons when used) and players are encouraged to read the details.
As always, you can find the release notes of this and previous versions linked from the technical documentation page, and this particular release's links are here.
Highlights from this release include:
Performance: As always, there is a laundry list of fixes and enhancements that are difficult to enumerate in a change log, due to their placement behind the areas visible to end users. Servers continue to operate faster and with more stability, and capacities of servers to communicate with one another are improved. The big one that users will notice is a prompting to link your gamespy IDs to your Drupal and Forum IDs-- it will be a single clickable link, which will also prompt you to verify that you're an adult for IA's purposes, and will allow us better control of things like Temporary Retirement interfaces in the future.
RP Spells: We've added a lot of them. Most of them don't provide any mechanical effects (except Waterbreathing, which works with our swimming system), but they spare us the ambiguity of whether that Magic Missile you prepared was, in fact, Jump. This will also help those spontaneous spellcasters who cast spells that NWN2 didn't provide for us originally keep track of their spells known. In addition, the implied increase in supply of level 0 spells means that Sorcerers and Favored Souls will get to learn up to their class' actual maximum of 9 level 0 spells when they reach the appropriate level to do so.
Invocations: Almost every invocation has changed, which brings Warlocks extremely close to an expected stable "end state" for the class, more closely mirroring the descriptions in <i>Complete Mage</i> and <i>Complete Arcane</i>. While the amount that we've been able to accomplish with the class isn't enough to lift the restriction on new warlocks, the changes are significant enough that our remaining warlocks can expect a much-higher degree of stability in the function of the class, and could consider our years-old promises to make changes to the mostly fulfilled, with the expectation that any required fixes would go into the next version of the ACR before work on the class is called complete.
Combat Expertise: An old thorn in our DMs' and PA's sides, in the monitoring and enforcement of proper use of Combat Expertise, is now handled entirely by script. The feat now disables itself in response to spellcasting and does not resume its protection until the string of spells cast is complete. In addition, its AC bonus is capped by base attack bonus, it bears a server-side cooldown of 6 seconds (which is not vulnerable to the bugs associated with client-side cooldowns, as we see with things like Subdual Mode), and its AC type has changed from "untyped" to dodge-- which means that the only time people who use combat expertise can count on its bonus is when they're actually fighting things with weapons. I've verified with the PA that this handles all known enforcement issues with the feat, and should shut it down as a source of disputes and (hopefully) reduce its companion drama.
Voice Throwing: The newest ACR has a new tool to help DMs send text to distant NPCs, and to hear the things that those NPCs would hear. A DM may now select an NPC and enter # followed by a number (such as "#1") to specify that as a target for voice throwing, and then may use that number like a chat channel to speak through it (such as "#1 Hello world!"). In addition, if a DM leaves the general area where a so-marked NPC is, he or she will start to receive messages in his or her server window whenever the NPC hears something, such as chat in the general vicinity. This only works on NPCs, and DMs may not throw their voices through PCs.
Of course, the change log will be more specific and verbose on what exactly changed, and there are many smaller niblets of useful in the mix (like subdual damage no longer bugs weapons with -5 damage, and will in fact repair previously-bugged weapons when used) and players are encouraged to read the details.
