DragonRealms Updates (2021)

Changes to the game during the 2021 calendar year.

January

• Premium preview of new Enlightened Geometry metaspell, Ripplegate Theory.
• Two small Crafting improvements released.

1. Work Order system should now properly recognize an item you crafted using materials created by another player.
2. Improved failure messaging when using the wrong tools or items.

• Tuesday Tidings 46: Reorganization of creatures in the Crossing sewers. There are now 3 tiers of silverfish and 3 tiers of ruffians in the sewers, including a Premium-only hunting area.
• MOVING while hidden or invisible now uses the same standard checks. There are behavior changes when dealing with rooms that do not allow Stealth.
• Cambrinth items are now allowed to be altered via LTB alteration scrolls.
• Tuesday Tidings 47: Expansion of TOGGLE APPRAISAL, adding numerical ratings when APPRAISING creatures.
• Tuesday Tidings 48: Expansion of the FORAGE command, adding a RECALL option to evaluate the area you're in for the items intended to be found there.
• Release of two new leather materials: enaada (auction-tier) and smokewhorl (prize-tier).
• House of the Revenant Fang 437 microtransaction event.
• Tuesday Tidings 49: Adjustments to Xala'shar special attacks, specifically the vindicators' wail and vanquishers' blinding sparks.

February

• Tuesday Tidings 50: Fifteen (15) new templated items added to the kitchen loot pool for Breaking and Entering.
• Tuesday Tidings 51: Spawn improvements to the eidolon steeds found south of Shard, including a small Premium expansion.
• Moon Mage spell "Ripplegate Theory" goes on general preview.
• Bonus events celebrating DragonRealm's 25th Anniversary begin, and the release of the PLAYED command to see your account usage/status.
• Updates to the COUNT and INVENTORY commands. COUNT now supports eddies; INVENTORY received some bugfixes to ensure the proper roundtime was being applied in certain scenarios.
• New Area-of-Effect Options

1. ROAR CREATURES is a new option available to Barbarians trained in the Strategos mastery. Various bugs with ROAR options have also been squished.
2. TOGGLE AOE is a new option available to magic users with offensive Area-of-Effect spells. These new options also support the quirky Cleric spell Hydra Hex.

• Tuesday Tidings 52: Empaths gain the ability to SHIFT entire decades! Also included are some messaging updates -- both the shifter and shiftee should see exactly what features are being changed now, in most cases.
• Messaging improvements to the SHOP STATUS output for Traders when inside their player-owned shops. If the shop is failing finanically additional messaging about potential rent increases with be shown.
• Tuesday Tidings 53: Citizens of a province may further pledge to a particular town within the province to unlock an "of (city)" affiliation title.

March

• Return of the Moon Mage spell Shadow Web, a scroll-only cyclic AoE Debilitation.
• Tuesday Tidings 54: Premium expansion to the Abandoned Mines near Stone Clan with five new rooms of warklins and maulers. The spawners controlling the area (both regular and premium rooms) have also been improved.
• Launch of the Official DragonRealms Discord server, and the DISCORD command to authorize access and configure settings.
• Killing certain innocent-looking NPCs, while in a justice area, will now generate a murder charge.
• Alternative flexing mechanics released for Wyvern Arena, configurable by the Tournament Directors, allowing for many mayhem-filled tourneys.
• Tuesday Tidings 55: Introduction of a special necklace, allowing Rakash to teleport (attuned to Katamba) to Siksraja once per day. They are sold in Garidznawk Cehs within Siksraja and bond (the nobody-else-can-use-it kind) to the first Rakash to RUB them.
• Reopening of the Seacaves of Peri'el, in celebration of DragonRealms' 25th Anniversary. There is a tent on the beach that sells tokens that can will unlock some titles based on your cumulative active subscription time.
• Tuesday Tidings 56: A plateau appears on Wyvern Mountain near Shard, containing two sections of storm bulls. The standard area contains bulls (107-111) little more hardy than their Ilaya Taipa counterparts (109), and there's a Premium component (spawns 111-115).
• Requirements updates and standardization to some existing titles, taking into account mechanics, lore, and systems changes since their original release (e.g. new Khri and mech lore requirements).
• Renewed efforts to standardize creature loot value, based on relative difficulty, using the approximate coin per level (ACPL) standard.
• Tuesday Tidings 57: Three QoL improvements to appraisal:

1. Appraising a shield will now show both the held and worn appraisal.
2. Differentiation with INV SLOTS between items worn "tied to the hair" and items "placed in the hair". Additionally, items worn on the upper arm will now appraise as "upper arm" (two words) instead of "upperarm" (one word).
3. All worn skinning knives -- regardless of adjective -- can now be used as Skinning foci (for APPRAISE FOCUS) for non-Necromancers.

• Release of the EYE verb for your RPing needs. Though all races can use the basic messaging, Elotheans have access to a number of more detailed options.
• Titles reorganization.

1. Back-end reorganization of how titles are stored. Some things, like Order Titles, have moved.
2. Addition of the Phenom and Avatar categories. These two are like the other skill-level categories, and will become available to you at 1500 and 1750 ranks respectively.
3. Necromancers got 27 new titles in their guild category, and a new Arcane category. Titles in the guild category are outrageous, while the Arcane titles are not.
4. Necromancer titles (and the necromancer profession) are no longer radioactive. Instead, they now work like having a Transcendental spell up in a standard justice zone: you will get arrested in town for having a guild title up. This change just removes the threat of SO accruing while out of town for titles alone.

• Droughtman's Challenge 437 microtransaction event.
• Tuesday Tidings 58: The Shadow's Reach forges in southern Ilithi have been rekindled!

April

• Tuesday Tidings 59: The remaining Xala'shar warriors (non-casters), commonly referred to as "Tier 4" (overseers, shredders, and archers) as well as the slayers, have had their special attacks reviewed and their damage adjusted. Their specials still have a bite, but they shouldn't end you in just a hit or two.
• Tuesday Tidings 60: Expansion of the news stand locations for The First Land Herald. The imps are now selling copies of the newsletter in Hibarnhvidar (by the inn), Aesry (by the Crystal Wave), and Fang Cove (by the bank). The imps are also more chatty. Prime only.
• Circle requirement removed from Embroidery; now available to Commoners.
• Tuesday Tidings 61: Reshuffling of the Vineyards hunting area outside of Crossing's northeast gate (like Baearholt's and connected areas). Lower-level creatures have be split into smaller more distinct tiered areas with better spawning. Also included are some equipment and messaging upgrades.
• New version of Barbarian's War Stomp. It now functions as a jump-to-melee maneuver that does a double attack upon landing. The attacks do fire-themed damage, and the target is locked to melee for a short time. Compatible with mech mice equipment and recognizes blessed states when fighting undead.
• Reorganization of titles from MT events.
• Tuesday Tidings 62: Two new housing areas located in Crossing: Tatting Street and Riverlace Lane, with lovely views of the Oxenwaithe and High Temple, are now available! It's primarily a middle/upperclass homes, which can only be claimed by Estate Holders.

May

• Tuesday Tidings 63: Vaults can be pre-paid up to 12 platinum kronars at a time, covering vault access for 2 real life years. Multiple payments can be made to pay your rent even longer.
• Supplies to upgrade Risen now available in all Necromancer guildhalls. Additionally, there's a new stealthy ability to teach.
• Barbarian's Earthquake berserk is now a melee AoE knockdown ability. Knocking down four (either at a time or cumulatively over several pulses) will grant a short-term improved Whirlwind.
• Bug fixes to the Ranger Personal Trail Marker System (PTMs), correcting a long-term issue that prevented certain actions from taking place.
• Tuesday Tidings 64: Forager ghouls (level 130ish) have surfaced within the Zaulfung. These (undead) ghouls are a little different; good luck with them!
• Tuesday Tidings 65: A dozen or so common gathering places have been updated with seating, snacks and perhaps a firepit for tiring adventures. A few of the locations are seasonal, and a few have some surprises.
• Su Helmas: The Forbidden Temple 438 microtransaction event.
• Updates to the Rocky Outcrop near Crossing, the area with the ogres, bloodwolves, and bears. The area layout has changed slightly to keep the creatures confined a bit better, and the ogres now drop better gear.
• Tuesday Tidings 66: Major revamp of Baearholt's Farm. New creatures! New layouts! Basically, everything has changed.
• Release of the Ignition Point Metaspell for Paeldryth's Wrath. This metaspell will cause naphtha delivered by the PW spell to ignite on impact.
• Updates to balance heal abilities to make them all restore roughly the same amount of balance. Arbitrary caps have been removed, so all abilities can now take you to the actual balance cap. Impacted: Monkey Form, Centering, Truffenyi's Rally, Cheetah Swiftness, Khri Flight, Sure Footing and Aesandry Darlaeth.

June

• Tuesday Tidings 67: When you APPRAISE a sling, bow, or crossbow, you will now see the base load time (before any stat, skill, or other modifications).
• Reset of Barbarian abilities.

1. Barbarians will receive grandfathered Utility skill ranks equal to 80% of a their Warding skill.
2. The following abilities will now teach the Utility skill: Famine, Tsunami, Dispel, Avalanche, Staunch, Prediction, Wolverine.

• Experience gained when hitting with a weapon, or with a TM attack, has increased.
• Tuesday Tidings 68: Enhancements to the Rumor system. You can now STUDY NPCs and see if they're a part of the rumor system as well as their biases.
• Both PERCEIVE SELF and MEDITATE POWER have had their RT and EXP removed to match KHRI CHECK. In addition, Thieves can now see spells in their spell window.
• Guildfest 438
• Changes to cosmetics, allowing you to APPLY to your friends with their approval. Additional a STUDY has been added to some of the new products.
• Tuesday Tidings 69: Release of the TITLE FIND command, allowing players to look up a title and its requirements.
• Auction mechanics changed so that a bidding unit can be set. At the Guildfest Auction, BID 1 it will attempt to bid 1 platinum Lirum, if you type BID 500 it will attempt to bid 500 platinum Lirums, and so on. No amount of gold, silver, bronze, or copper coins on you, regardless of their overall value, will be usable for bidding in this format.
• Tuesday Tidings 70: The Zaulfung swamp got even more undeadlier with forager wights! They are stronger, faster, and more aggressive than their forager ghoul relatives, spawning between levels 139-145 and use ranged weapons.
• Changes/bugfixes to spellbooks (the items), and how the Scrolls chapters within them work.
• Tuesday Tidings 71: Flaming dinnsehenchas (levels 147-153) released. Found in the upper caverns of Hibarnhvidar and not for the faint of heart. There is a large cavern that's for everyone and then a smaller grotto that's premie only.

July

• Infuser Stones can be used to reduce the cooldown of inkpots containing Runic Tattoos. One stone will remove 15 days of cooldown. Thus, two Infuser Stones will remove the entire cooldown.
• Tuesday Tidings 72: The Negotiants' nest has been poked and new deals have been stirred up for Traders. Overall, this should give you a little more flexibility with managing your aura. And the new deals are not without some risks.
• Charged Combat Maneuvers no longer have a charge up time, and are now referred to as Advanced Combat Maneuvers. Adjustments have been made so each MANEUVER is strong against one type of defense.
• Barbarian abilities (Forms, Meditations, and Berserks) have been normalized to use the same difficulty settings as Magic.
• Barbarian Berserks no longer consume Inner Fire when they fail to activate when you already didn't have enough.
• Initial results of The Barrier Review to DR:Test for testing! There are many tweaked abilities/spells, and several brand new ones as well.

• Introduction of "reactive slots", which limited the number of "damage reactive" warding abilities a character can have up at any given time. Every guild (now) has a wide enough selection of abilities that players can make choices about which ones to use based on preference.
• Sorcerous warding continues to be possible, but reaching outside your native abilities is (generally) more costly than an in-guild option.
• New Spells/Abilities: Drought Berserk (Barbarian), Failure of the Forge (Bard), Telekinetic Shield (MM), Ghoulflesh (Necromancer), Glyph of Dueling (Paladin), Tamsine's Kiss (Paladin), Bloodthorns (Ranger), River in the Sky (Ranger), Khri Adaptation (Thief) and Gam Irnan (Warrior Mage)

• Tuesday Tidings 73: New TIME DATE command that tells you the in-game dates for a real world date. And a new system check to avoid death while you're in the dying state. If you have no actively bleeding wounds (they must be fully tended!) and you have at least 10% of your max vitality, you'll survive the death check.
• Drathrok's Duskruin 438 microtransaction event.

• Introduction of Heroic Tattoos.

• Tuesday Tidings 74: The Wilderness creatures north of Crossing (Inkhornes, vipers, leucros, rock guardians, and forest geni) were shuffled around and condensed a bit (also hello new Premium areas!) to make room for a high level meanie coming in a future update!
• Heroic Tattoos now have their cooldown reduced by Arcana skill, and they teach the Arcana skill.
• Tuesday Tidings 75: Telga orek appear in a small cave on Basalt Isle. They spawn at creature level 151, with a -3/+3 range (i.e., 148-154).

August

• Tuesday Tidings 76: Hunting area expansion near Kaerna in the Journalai Ruins area, offering a few more rooms for onyx gargoyles and giant bears. These are premium only rooms, but allow Estate Holders to take in non-Estate Holders.
• Tuesday Tidings 77:

1. All non-crafting repair shops were updated to accept all weapons and armor, regardless of material. You may notice some changes to room names, messaging, and ticket printouts.
2. Calendars have been added to all banks, typically near the teller or entry, with the current date in a user-friendly format, such as "Havrandu, 19 Akroeg 439."

• Tuesday Tidings 78: Release of the VAULT verb, allowing you to remotely handle your vault-related needs. Some of the options are only available to paying subscribers, and a few are free to premium subscribers while requiring urchin runner contracts if you're on a standard account.
• Tuesday Tidings 79: Two updates to the AUTOLOOT mechanics that should make scroll collectors and box openers happy! There's now a dedicated SCROLLS toggle and an AUTOBOX option to loot a picked chest when it's OPENed the first time.
• Tuesday Tidings 80: Release of the DISSECT verb to gain insights to First Aid! It will feel familiar to those of you acquainted with the Necromancers' dissection ritual.

September

• Tuesday Tidings 81: Cloud rats (level 63 to 67) appear in a new area in Ilithi, near Wyvern Mountain.
• Tuesday Tidings 82: The snowbeasts and granite gargoyles found in the Dragon's Spine of Ilithi have been split into their own non-overlapping zones. Additionally, there have been some improvements to their spawning behavior.
• Taisidon Mystery 439 microtransaction event.
• Tuesday Tidings 83: HUNT is now a little friendlier with regards to water areas. You can now SEE nearby targets to help find creatures to hunt when they're in swimming rooms, and with ankle deep water and a little bit of athletics (25 ranks), you can also HUNT to a target.
• Tuesday Tidings 84: Expansion of the VAULT verb, tweaking the existing STANDARD and FAMILY listing options (how they consume urchin runners) and adding VAULT STORE, VAULT REMOVE and VAULT TRANSFER options. Updates work with both standard and family vaults.

October

• Tuesday Tidings 85: The previously quest-only beltumushis have a new hunting area in P3, near Wyvern Mountain and the storm bulls. These are Empath-friendly constructs, and range from creature level 52-56. There is also a premium-only area of them, to help with crowding.
• Tuesday Tidings 86: More low-level undead hunting available in Ilithi. Just south of Steelclaw Clan is a dilapidated farmstead, containing Zombie leucros, ranging clvl 35 +/- 2.
• Tuesday Tidings 87: Deed registers got an update so you can ADJUST them to sort the contents by material! Doing so will also close any gaps and shift everything to the front of the register.
• Tuesday Tidings 88: 18 new things added into the foraging system.

November

• Andreshlew rises and Hollow Eve Festival 439 begins.
• Tuesday Tidings 89: TWO new neighborhoods for the Zoluren clans:

• Tiger Clan's new Oak Tree Loop neighborhood has a number of middle-class rural homes restricted to Gor'Togs.
• Wolf Clan has a new Wolverine Ward area with middle-class rural homes restricted to Humans.

• Sleeping Dragon Corn Maze 439 microtransaction event.
• Tuesday Tidings 90: Zombie crocodiles (ranging 26 +/-1) now lurk down near Shard, in the dilapidated farmstead.
• Changes from the Barrier Review are LIVE! New abilities are on a preview period.

• Introduction of the concept of "ward slots".
• New abilities/spells: Drought (Barbarian), Failure of the Forge (Bard), Telekinetic Shield (Moon Mage), Ghoulflesh (Necromancer), Glyph of Dueling (Paladin), Tamsine's Kiss (Paladin), Bloodthorns (Ranger), River in the Sky (Ranger), Khri Adaptation (Thief), Gam Irnan (Warrior Mage)
• Changed abilities/spells: Naming of Tears (Bard), Ghost Shroud (Cleric), Minor Physical Protection (Cleric), Iron Constitution (Empath), Cage of Light (Moon Mage), Calcified Hide (Necromancer), Emuin's Candlelight (Necromancer), Siphon Vitality (EBotS-modified, Necromancer), Aspirant's Aegis (Paladin), Elision (Trader), Trabe Chalice (Trader), Ethereal Shield (Warrior Mage), Grounding Field (Warrior Mage)

• Tuesday Tidings 91: More than 80 new spots for lumberjacking added to the islands (Ratha, Aesry, Hara'jaal, and M'Riss).
• Barbarian's Serenity meditation updated so that it only triggers during CAST operations. (Integrity is not checked outside of that time, so it made no sense to trigger costing the Barbarian IF when the ability did nothing.) Temporarily reverted.
• Tuesday Tidings 92: Change to the formatting of the appraisal messaging for shield protection, to better reflect what they actually do. (Only the formatting has changed; the underlying scale is identical, so it will not affect existing player documentation of shields.)
• Tuesday Tidings 93: The SHOW command will now automatically show the READ of (most) items that have them.

December

• Tuesday Tidings 94: The SEPARATE command can remove single objects from a stack, split stacks in half, and remove a specific number of objects from a stack.
• Tuesday Tidings 95: With sufficient First Aid skill, internal bleeders can now be TENDed. Additionally, damage to your hands and arms is no longer binary. A completely severed arm or hand will still prevent tending, but with enough skill, your (potentially very) damaged limbs can still provide life saving first aid to both the self and others!
• Tuesday Tidings 96: Four new sets of harveting locations, two mining sets (in Ratha and Hibarnhvidar) and two new lumberjacking sets (in Siksraja and Hara'Jaal). All together, there's more than 35 new spots for harvesting spread across these four areas.
• Tuesday Tidings 97: The shield protection messaging in the COMPARE verb has been updated to be consistent with the revised messaging released as Tuesday Tidings #92.
• Release of the ABILITY command, allowing Barbarians to see all abilities in one command. It will work for other guilds as well, but it essentially mimics the functionality of SPELL for magic users and KHRI LIST for Thieves.