Patch Notes: 1.0.00

Patch Categories

epitaph	epiphany
eidolon

The Great Panic

Project Leader: Drakkos

August 16, 2013

The Great Panic is the popular name given to the tremendous upset, fear, anger and upheaval caused when society at large realised that the civic and military power structures were unable to resolve the infection. It also refers to the great panic associated with finally releasing the monumental conclusion to a three and a half year development cycle, for this is the patch where Epitaph finally went live! While there are a lot of entries in this patch, they still don't really do justice to the amount of work that has been invested between Epitaph 0.5.2 and this version. The area work alone doubles the size of the game, with a huge number of extra quests each involving significant development and testing. Along with this has come a huge emphasis on ensuring the playability of the game, with internal testing, debugging and balancing taking a large amount of time. This is our first truly major patch - we hope you enjoy it.

Accessibility

• There is now an 'accessible' option for conversation keywords. This highlights keywords in braces, {like so}.
• Option added for suppressing difficulty modifier announcements. May not work for everything out of the box, please bugrep commands within the game that do not honour the setting.
• A new option has been added for 'descriptions look' - 'change'. It will give you the long description only if it changes between your previous room and your new room, otherwise it will give you the brief view instead.
• Support for 'alt text' has been provided. This allows us to provide different text depending on whether or not you have set 'options mud_output accessible_text' to on. The 'who' command has been changed to use it for a simplified presentation. Please idea report anything that you feel would benefit from this.
• A 'screenreader' command has been added. This will set your options to an optimal state for screenreading. You can switch the setting on and off - switching it off will restore your previous settings.
• You will now be prompted to say if you want screenreader settings as part of character creation.
• There's now an option, 'options mud_output room_contents_on_top' that will move the inventory line before the room descriptions - those using a screen reader won't have to wait for the description to be read before they know a zombie is chewing on them.

Areas

• The United Nations stronghold of Monadh Bay has been added to the game. It is accessible via a passenger ship that ferries people between the main pier and the Dunglen docks.
• The Alloway Stones - a mysterious ring of standing stones, has been added. It's available through exploration.
• The Templar stronghold of Kirkmohr Castle has been added to the game. It is accessible via exploration from Dunglen.
• The newbie area has been altered a little to require players to demonstrate they can consider, greet and ask NPCs about topics.
• The Templar outpost of Croabh Eileach Abbey has been added to the game, and is accessible via a taxi from Kirkmohr.
• The Osiris outpost of Napier Observatory has been added to the game, and is accessible via exploration
• The Osiris stronghold of the Arctic Research Centre has been added to the game, and is accessible via a taxi from Dunglen.
• The United Nations outpost of the UNA Centurion has been added, and is accessible via a taxi from Eilean Targe
• The rural village of Braellen has been added, along with its new quests and story. It is accessible via exploration.
• New players will receive a couple of bottles of baby formula and a couple of baby rusks as part of their newbie area experience. These will give no nutritional benefit to anyone over six hours of age. The pill bottle that you get in the bathroom has also been changed to contain baby aspirin rather than full painkillers.
• The torch and batteries that newbies get in the newbie area have been changed to more limited versions. The torch now requires 'toy batteries' and these can not be found in the game. It is expected that players will 'trade up' to real equipment by the time they have run through their limited supply.
• ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE (105!) new quests added. Most are in the new areas, but there are a few more spread around Dunglen.

Balance

• General XP awards scaled back dramatically.
• XP awards for quests and achievements moved on to a bespoke calculation and off of the general XP award system.
• NPCs no longer grant death XP if they were not a sufficient challenge for your character.
• Cost of advancing, in money, reduced by a factor of five.
• Death XP is now dependant on how many 'health bars' an NPC has - an NPC without stamina will now grant half as much XP.
• Weapon and armour quality will degrade at a considerably higher rate than before.
• Second winds now regenerate erratically rather than regularly.
• Completing a quest now earns money as well as experience, but only if it was handed in to an NPC
• Containers in the game now hold a considerable amount less than before.
• Combat against multiple foes now comes with a more significant penalty, especially beyond three opponents.
• NPCs now get a random selection of knacks based on their level.
• The way XP is calculated for combat has been overhauled. It is no longer based on an average of 'combat appropriate' skills (defined in the skills handler) but is instead handled on a proportionate level based on the degree to which you used certain skills during a combat. If you managed to work frying an egg into a combat, it is considered to be 'combat relevant' and the skills used will count towards the XP you earned. This has several knock-on effects and they are considerable. The first is that the more skills you use in a combat, the more diverse your skill profile and the wider a range of XP you can hope to get. If you rely on using skills that you don't have at a very high level, you'll find yourself being able to keep earning XP for longer than if you'd used skills with which you're very capable. The second is that only skills that were used in a combat count, so an NPC that may previously have given a certain amount of XP may give less because they were using a baseball bat they barely knew how to use instead of their trusty pistol that ran out of ammo. This should better reflect the amount of XP you get for combat relative to challenge, but I'll be keeping an eye on the system.
• Stat dependencies for skills have been moved around. There is not a perfect balance of these yet, but it'll be fixed over time as new skills are added.
• The level and type of NPCs across the board have been adjusted.
• The durability and difficulties of various materials has been adjusted to create a proper difficulty curve.

Bug Fixes

• You can no longer generate infinite XP by unlocking and locking the same door with the pick command.
• Using qwho will now correctly work for the tutorial achievements.
• You will no longer be *docked* XP if you have XP penalties and receive an XP award.
• Launching special attacks will now properly award TMs as would be expected.
• Creatures without hands are no longer able to open and close doors.
• Advancement costs will now be correctly deducted in all situations.
• You will no longer be spammed about advancement restriction, and the warning will not show when you are making progress towards a quest or achievement you have completed.
• Patch update informs on login will no longer show all patches, only those that are actually new.
• Miscellaneous small bug and typo fixes.
• Players will now be notified when a mail has been sent to them while they are online.
• You will no longer receive multiple announcements that you have met the requirements for a quest.
• Locked street doors will now have a difficulty corresponding to the danger level of their area.
• Coldcocking a target will now properly stop all objects in combat.
• Doubletap command can no longer be done with a weapon that needs to fire more than two shots as a minimum.
• Being off balance will now count correctly for difficulty modifiers.
• Reloading time should properly calculate now.
• Shields are now properly holdable, and can no longer be worn.
• Slam command now works correctly.
• Time taken to fire ranged weapons is now correctly calculated for all commands.
• Sunder now correctly reports to the holder of the object being sundered.
• Defensive stance no longer results in zero damage.
• The time taken to unjam a weapon has been fixed.
• Melee, ranged and positional commands now take the normal set of difficulty modifiers into account.
• 'it' and 'them' should now work properly when dealing with containers.
• Epitaph's constant crashing has been fixed by Maw and Eek. All hail Maw and Eek!
• You will now no longer be *rewarded* for having the XP reduction knack.
• Knack costs on 'knacks' should now properly reflect your actual cost.
• Equipment condition should now be properly persisted across logins.
• You will no longer heal while social mode is enabled.
• Over a thousand other minor bug and typo fixes.

Commands

• The slip command now allows you to slip items covertly into adjacent rooms.
• The deus command has been removed in favour of giving you a chance to 'pray to maestro'. This is hopefully a more obvious syntax for those in difficulties.
• Wimpy removed from score, current and maximum weight added in.
• Reloading outside of combat has been made much easier.
• The cooldown for 'wimpy' has been increased to a full hour.
• A new command has been added - 'lure'. You can use it to try and lure NPCs into your current room.
• A new command has been added - 'meditate'. You can use it to adjust your alignment, earn some free XP, replenish lucky escapes and second winds and fix up your resolve.
• The 'factions' command now shows factions categorized into meaningful chunks.
• The 'factions' command now shows key NPCs associated with each faction.
• The 'quests' command now shows quest dialogue as part of the quest description.
• The 'score' command now shows the total number of quest points available to you (discounting those for which you don't meet the pre-requisites).
• The 'stats' command is now available in the game, and will show the same stats as the web stats interface.
• The options menu available from the 'options' command has been tidied up.
• 'options colour' has been categorised so it's no longer a big ol' wall of text.
• The consider command no longer shows how good NPCs are at performing certain tasks. Instead it shows a series of useful and meaningful information regarding what role they play in the game.
• Cooldown for trip increased to 120 seconds.
• Combat commands will now never fail to launch if aimed at a prone target.
• 'Rip' and 'Suture' commands removed for now, until wounds system is assessed and returns.
• Bandage command now applies a bandage to create an ongoing healing effect.
• Repair has been expanded to support 'special' repairs. The only one implemented so far is using radio innards to repair a broken radio.
• 'wind' cooldown increase to fifteen minutes, and set to be a delayed payload which can be interrupted during combat.
• The 'kick' command now has an additional payload - it will interrupt a player who is performing a delayed command.
• 'it' and 'them' now work with salvage.
• Format of uptime changed.
• It is once again possible to bury corpses.
• 'Toolbar' command added for those using MXP. It gives access to menus of commands that can be performed on you, your current room, and the web.
• A new command - 'roll' has been added. It functions much as wimpy except that it only works when you are prone. Use it wisely.
• The 'distill' command has been added for purchase. This command allows you to distill fouled water into dirty water, and dirty water into clean water. You'll need a heat source and a glass bottle to do this.
• The patches command, largely because of the size of these patch notes, has been made categorized by default. You can get the full patch information using 'patch details'.
• The evaluate command will now honour passive questsense when used on inanimate quest givers.
• NPCs will no longer spawn in buildings that have been fully barricaded/locked against the outside.
• Powernapping is now more effective if it's on a positionable item and if you are in a fully barricaded area.
• Commands have been ported over to give, as far as is possible, full failure messages (rather than a sequence of you failed to do this, retry, you failed to do this).
• Energy restrictions have been removed from all commands. There should no longer be any command that tells you you can't perform it because you have no energy left. However, the amount of energy you have left will determine whether you can TM from an activity, and how long it will take to perform. You'll get slower and slower the less energy you have.
• The score needed to hack computers has been reduced significantly.
• The cooldown of preparation has been increased to half an hour.
• The cleave command now requires a two handed weapon, and the cooldown has been increased from 30 seconds to 60 seconds.
• Upon being disarmed, you will be unable to hold the weapon again for a short time.
• Flurry command changed to require a one handed weapon.
• Cost for quickdraw increased to 250.
• Reload time is halved when done out of combat.
• Cooldowns for many commands increased.
• The throw command no longer needs an item to be held before it is thrown, and has new attack messages to go along with it.
• Unjamming is now easier and quicker if you are out of combat.
• The reveal command no longer requires a point investment - it is given when you have obtained some levels of mental.perception.observationVarious stealth commands given cooldowns.
• The culture, diagnose and flush commands have been removed from the game for the time being.
• A new command has been added - 'heal'. It requires a first aid kit, but applies an instant chunk of healing to the indicated target.
• A new command has been added - 'attend'. It works like heal, but on a quicker cooldown and less health restored.
• Bandage and counsel have been moved across to a new healing architecture. Their behaviour has been changed accordingly but they will now behave more consistently.
• A new command has been added - 'reassure'. It works like attend, but addresses resolve instead of health.
• Bribing, intimidating and charming NPCs now awards XP for successful completion.
• Bribing, intimidating and charming now have modifiers based on witnesses. Intimidate and bribing are easier the fewer witnesses there are, while charm is more effective the more witnesses there are.
• '60' command has been removed - no longer serves a useful purpose.
• The 'age' command has been removed - 'score' and 'finger' already provide this functionality.
• The 'bugcheck' command has been removed - guidance no longer appropriate for our systems.
• The 'email' command has been removed - chfn already provides this functionality.
• The 'map' command now acts as a way to see the in-text ASCII map at any point.
• A new command has been added - 'roar'. It's an AoE taunt.
• The 'relationships' command has been removed - this is not a system supported on Epitaph.
• Prepping special combat commands now generates threat.
• Using the 'preparation' command now generates threat.
• The 'aim' command now generates some threat when used successfully.
• A successful battlecry now generates threat.
• The probe command now reduces the difficulty to crack/pick the lock to which it is applied.
• Powernapping is now more effective if you are in a room where NPCs cannot spawn.
• PK checks added to many commands.
• The output of 'options' has been tidied up a little.
• You'll now be given a reminder if you login with social mode enabled.
• Money can now be referred to by the usual colloquialisms. 'Fiver' for five pounds, 'fifties' for fifty pounds and so on.

Community

• New clan achievements have been added.
• Membership of a group now increases your chances of a TM. The increased chance is dependent on the number of players in your group who are currently in the same room.
• The number of clan points a clan has now scales linearly with membership numbers, not exponentially.

Crafting

• The 'zinc plate' and 'copper plate' schematics have been removed, with the standard 'metal plate' schematic taking their place.
• Constructing a wireless access module now requires a handful of radio innards.
• The 'steel rod' schematic has been removed, with the standard 'metal rod' schematic taking its place.
• A new book, 'axemurdering for beginners' has been added to the game.
• A new book 'tools for teens' has been added to the game.
• Gathering commands that require a tool will now adjust the condition of that tool when used.
• The condition of the tool you use now has an impact of gathered quality.
• Gathering now makes a noise - the type and volume is based on the type of gathering.
• The quality of gatherable nodes you find in the wild is now variable and dependent on your skills.
• Tanning and Curing now require the appropriate kits.
• Tanning and Curing Kits are now found when scavenging.
• Crafting patterns will now require only each individual part of a schematic to be a consistent colour, not the whole thing.
• The difficulty of butchering and skinning corpses is now based on the difficulty of the object killed.
• The construct command has been removed for now, it's patterns being merged into 'assemble'.
• Cooking has been taken out of the game, very briefly, due to a rewrite of the food system that rendered it all incompatible.

Dunglen

• Some dogs have been set to be 'barkers' - if they are surprised by someone sneaking around, they will bark at you and remove stealth. However, dogs can be distracted with gifts of food and a few other things - when distracted, they won't bark.
• The level of peacekeepers, missionaries and operatives has been reduced significantly.
• Landmark information has been removed from long descriptions - this is now accessible at any time through the 'bearings' command.
• Some new celebrities have been added for taking out your aggression.
• The representatives of the United Nations have been moved from the barracks to the Dunglen docks.
• Liz added to the Winchester.
• The Franklin Hates Everything achievement has been removed.
• The quest 'Putting The Band Back Together' has been given four pre-requisites.
• Strong and extra strong painkillers have been made available via scavenge.
• Winchester cat killing mission reduced to 5 cats from 10.
• Baths and basins will partially fill with fouled water when they spawn in houses.
• Windows added to many rooms.
• Behemoths will now throw enemies around, doing damage and knocking them prone. You have been warned.
• Entering the barracks if you are an enemy of the Dragoons will end up with a hail of gunfire directed your way.
• The first time you attack a unique NPC that isn't otherwise aggressive towards you, you'll receive a friendly warning that it's not a good idea. The first time.
• More cash machines, telephone booths and vending machines have been seeded around the game.
• New breakable objects, tampon machines, are now seeded through the game. I'm sure you can guess what's inside.
• The danger of the hospital has been dialed up quite a bit.
• NPCs will now be wearing a wider range of clothes in a wider range of colours and materials.
• Reapers added to the more dangerous parts of Dunglen.
• Some more street furniture, such as grit bins, post boxes, and rubbish bins have been added to the streets.
• Traffic signals have been placed at four way junctions in the city. If you activate these during the night, they will simultaneously attract zombies in nearby rooms and distract the ones in the current room.
• There is now a working clock add_item in the main bar of the Winchester.

Exploring

• The new exploring system has been put in place. From any set departure point in the game (marked with the text 'From here you can make your way farther into the big, scary world.'), you can now choose to 'hike' to destinations you have discovered, or 'explore' to try and find new areas within the game.
• The exploration system now comes with the possibility of encountering randomly generated areas - these may have gatherable resources, loot, or even quests. More of these random areas will be added as time goes by.
• A taxi system has been introduced, permitting players at the right location to board taxis that will take them to other far-flung locales.

Factions

• Upon choosing a major faction, you will now be locked to that faction for your entire time as a player.
• Radio channels for each of the major factions have been added - 1201, 1202 and 1203
• Upon joining a faction, your joining will be announced to the faction channel and represented in your finger info.
• Those who wish to search or shoplift in faction areas can now make use of distraction objects to get away with it.
• NPCs with faction allegiance will now sometimes have 'faction tokens' in their inventory. You can give these to the appropriate NPC in a faction for a Rep reward. You will be rewarded for giving an NPC the tokens of their own faction, or for the tokens that belong to enemy factions.
• The Knights Templar have had their name changed to the Last Covenant.
• The Covenant, Osiris and UN factions that are encountered within Dunglen have had their names changed. They are now 'missionaries', 'Osiris public relations' and the 'diplomatic corps'
• Nine new factions have been added, three each for each of the three major powers in the world. These are the Sisterhood, the Poor Soldiers and the Auld Kirk for the Covenant; Osiris Research, Osiris Security and Osiris Acquisitions for Osiris; and Holyrood, the Black Watch and the Sea Wolves for the United Nations. These factions are located in the new areas added to the game in this patch.
• Each faction now has a 'favour granter' who will be able to do certain kinds of things in exchange for reputation. Each faction has the ability to put in a good word with other friendly or neutral factions, as well as to culturally inculcate you which moves your alignment towards their ideal one. Other factions have different favours they can grant. Find the favour giver and ask them about favours for more details.
• Selling an item of high interest to a faction will give you a small reputation boost.
• The enforced time delay between faction missions has been removed.
• Login faction rewards will no longer be awarded in factions that are linked to other factions.
• Factions now come with donation boxes where you can trade in money for reputation at the rate of a pound per point of rep.
• Attempting to salvage an item in a faction area will result in witnesses stopping you.
• Faction valuing of items for shops has been modified significantly.
• XP and money rewards for completing a faction mission increased. Rep rewards reduced.
• Random NPCs will now have random faction allegiances.
• Each faction now has its own shop, mission giver, favour granter and trainer.
• You can ask NPCs about 'faction' or 'loyalty' to see what their factional loyalty is.
• Killing zombies in territory close to a faction will now award you some rep with those factions.
• A new faction mission has been added for those that have the 'deactivate' command.

General

• who and qwho now show who is online in all Epiphany based MUDs.
• 'users' is now an alias for qwho, rather than a command with its own output.
• 'finger' is now an alias for who. The 'finger user' syntax remains identical in functionality.
• Blog and idea reports removed from the player info centre.
• News inform provided for when there are new announcements since you last checked.
• The format of finger has changed.
• A new wellbeing measure has been introduced - oxygen. You don't need to worry about this for the most part, but when you do need to worry about it you need to worry about it *a lot*.
• Second winds now regenerate at a much slower rate.
• Player refer information now available through the infocentre on both the game and the web.
• Slipping a concealed item to a room will no longer break the concealed item's stealth.
• Palming a concealed item from a room will no longer break the concealed item's stealth.
• Tell reply will now work with targets on other MUDs.
• chfn allows for you to set your Facebook, Google+, linkedin and twitter profiles.
• Login rewards now require you to have been online for at least five minutes.
• A new special day has been added - Epitaph's Birthday. During this special event, the NPC Epi Taph will spawn randomly around the game!
• Glance changed to be more consistent with how 'look' works.
• Completing a quest will now give you access to a title you can put in your who via the 'title' command.
• Achievement stories have been changed into (mostly) apropos quotes.
• Vandalising items now triggers a sound inform for nearby players, and others...
• Loud noises now attract the attention of Maestro. You have been warned...
• The total number of QP in the game (all quests, regardless of pre-reqs) is available via the game stats.
• New knacks - up from 91 to 97.
• New goals - up from 25 to 49.
• New achievements - up from 234 to 257. Titles added to many achievements of massive or higher level.
• New schematics - up from 108 to 148
• New rumours - up from 76 to 136
• New radio broadcasts!
• New argument topics!
• New badges!
• Scrabble added as a category for Elo. Only counts in one on one games.
• The newbie command now only hassles you to get a radio once an hour at most.
• Rooms designated as general stores now have a line to indicate that in their long extra look.
• Passive questsense has been added - this can be enabled from the options menu or the questsense command. When switched on, if you consider an NPC that is a quest giver, it will tell you that's what they are.
• Dynamic help has been added, giving you context sensitive advice, guidance and explanations of what's going on as you play. As time goes by, the help will stop appearing.
• The help command now has a 'recap' syntax that lets you recap on dynamic help you've been given. Or any dynamic help in the game really, but it'll only list advice you've received. Similarly you can clear your received dynamic help to make it available once more as you play.
• PvP activities (playerkilling, chess and scrabble currently) have been added to high score tables.
• Practise objects changed to require only a single practise to give their full whack of skills, without needing to go through the Simon Says mechanism.
• Wounds have been removed from the combat system for the time being, although they may return in a future update once there is time to appropriately consider the balance implications.
• Paperclips, which act as terrible lockpicks and safecracking tools, can now be found across the game. Kirby grips have been increased in quality in terms of their lock and safepicking values.
• Maestro now has his own finger info.
• Drinking dirty or fouled water will now come with a resolve drain as a consequence. Distill it into pure water if you want it to go away.
• Decrepitudes now have chats to go along with them to remind you that you have them.
• The size of the in-game map has been increased.
• A new option has been added under mud_output - toolbar_on_move. This determines if the MXP toolbar is shown when you move to a new room, and where it is displayed if it is.
• Combat specials are now appropriately coloured when they land as well as when they are launched.
• Resolve no longer directly impacts on bonuses - instead, it becomes an additional penalty on skill checks.
• Four scraps can be converted into a strip of cloth through a new crafting schematic.
• Likelihood of dream maestro events increased.
• Dream events now occur in areas where Maestro would normally not be active.
• Vending machines are now breakable items and make noise when you thump them.
• Quests may now sometimes result in followup mails being sent to your inbox. These are mostly for narrative flavour but may occasionally have other gameplay effects. If you don't want these, you can switch them off using 'options game no_npc_mails', but bear in mind if you do that you won't ever get the mails for past quests even if you switch the blocking off.
• Aggressive NPCs will now converge on you from adjacent rooms if they notice you. They'll breach barricades too if they are in the way. The chance is increased if you're fighting. How badly you smell (governed by stains), closed doors and wind direction all make a difference for how much chance there is of this.
• When you move into rooms, you now have a chance of alerting aggressive NPCs to your presence.
• Deaths from combat will no longer restore hunger and thirst when you awake. Hunger/thirst deaths will restore hunger, thirst, health and energy. Resolve is no longer restored upon death.
• 'Complete quest for npc' can now be used to hand-in a completed quest for an NPC, without specifying the name.
• Prayer within combat is no longer guaranteed to return you to the Winchester. Sometimes other things will happen. Occasionally, nothing will happen.
• Digestion troubles added as a possible decrepitude.
• Jeff on Alphabet Street will now teach you the cloth strip pattern.
• Account status added to finger info - active / inactive / suspended
• Searching has been altered. You can no longer search for specific things, such as 'search trousers', but you can choose how you want to search - quickly versus carefully and quietly versus frantically. This will have an impact on your chance of finding things, the noise you make (searching makes a noise now too), the energy it costs and the time it takes.
• Navigation of dream and exploration events improved.
• You will no longer receive a room echo when players speak into their radios in your presence.
• Two new kinds of NPCs have been added - walkers and geeks. These are low level zombies encountered throughout the whole city.
• Burglar alarms have been made less likely to be armed when they clone - you should hear a good many fewer of these going off as you explore.
• It's now possible to barricade doors with furniture that exists in the room - it works the same way as barricading with anything else, it just forgoes the intermediate stage of salvaging it down.
• Dogs added as a factional enemy for the Winchester - you'll get missions to clear the streets of these now.
• Medicine is no longer a skill tree of its own - it's now folded into mental. Psychology is now a sub-skill of medicine.
• The constitution stat has been removed. The full set of stats available to players now are Strength, Wisdom, Intellect and Dexterity.
• Threat mechanics have been altered - now, the enemy an NPC is concentrating upon is the primary focus and each other enemy is considered at a quarter of their threat in terms of target selection. Taunting is a useful technique for snapping attention to a particular player, but there are no guarantees.
• The state of being 'bloodied' (at 50% of health) has now been added as a general modifier to difficulty. Try to avoid getting in this state.
• The player recruitment system has been brought online. You'll get a reward of skills any time you recruit someone who stays around for five full days of playtime. Your recruitee will receive the same.
• Creation of a new account allows for the setting of a recruitment code.
• You can check on the recruitment efforts of any player now using the 'recruitment stats' command.
• The start system has been reworked. You will have new start locations added to you as you adventure through the game. These are used by Maestro and by the login system. 'start' will give you a list of all your valid start areas.
• It is now possible to open, close, lock and unlock containers from stealth. You will will be unaware of whether or not you have been successful in this respect, but only those who see you making the move will be informed of your actions.
• Maestro protection will now show up in the 'buffs' command.
• Durability of clothing and armour substantially increased.
• Moving between rooms will be slower if you have no energy left.
• Short description of rooms now presented in verbose mode.
• Wooden powered objects are now powered with kindling, which is an object you can gain through crafting.
• Positional lines for living objects in a room are now more expressive when combat is ongoing.
• There is now an option that allows you to set the threshold for which you will gain alignment change informs. 'options mud_output alignment_updates=constant' will give you an inform whenever your alignment changes. Minor will limit the informs to changes of five or more points. Moderate to ten or more, and major to twenty five or more.
• Some quests will now do a pre-check on your ability to complete them, and refuse to grant them if you don't have the necessary commands.A new skill has been added - mental.knowledge.woodcraft. This relates to your ability to do 'boy scout' type things out in the wild.
• Energy draining zombies now have a different attack message.
• Long and glance descriptions now show details about how well lit the room is.
• Helpfiles now have examples and 'see also' entries.
• Deathblow messages added for many of the weapon-based melee commands.
• Weather conditions now have an impact on stealth and how far noise carries.
• Combat will now occasionally stain everything around you, depending on how hard you hit something.
• Max Idle time has been increased to two hours if Epitaph is mostly empty, an hour if we're under half full, half an hour if we're under three quarters full, and fifteen minutes otherwise. You can check the current idle time with 'idle' or 'uptime'
• It's no longer possible to wimpy/roll over obstacles.
• You can now 'donate' items to shops - you'll get no money for this, but a chunk of rep instead. The rep is based on the value of the item, the demand for the item, and you get a little bonus if it's something you made yourself.
• Everyone can talk on the newbie channel now, regardless of age.12 new Maestro modules added.

Items

• Quest items will now be biometrically locked to the player when provided, and will be removed upon quest completion.
• New loot item - novels. Reading a chapter of these for the first time will increase your resolve and give you some XP.
• New items - oxygen tanks and snorkles. Two different ways to keep from drowning.
• New items - distraction items. If you can position these in a room without anyone seeing you, they will distract NPCs when they go off. Chattering wind-up teeth are an example of this kind of item.
• New items - remote bugs. Place them in a room and you get to hear what's going on within - provided you have an appropriate listening device.
• New items - first aid kits. These are consumable requirements for certain kinds of healing command.
• Forbidden items will disappear from your inventory now - this includes quest items when you are no longer on the quest, and mission items.
• The damage that ranged weapons do in melee has been downgraded.
• Cheap flashlights are now weapons (not very good ones). The light that all torches emit is halved if they are not held.
• Weapons and armours will now reflect colour and material settings, and come in a wider range of both.
• Weights of all items in the game adjusted across the board. Many of these are now heavier, since they had no weight set previously.
• The material of a piece of armour now has an impact on its effectiveness.
• The material of a weapon now has an impact on its durability and effectiveness.
• More jewellery items added (up from 22 to 70), with a wider range of options in terms of styles, gem fittings and such. NPCs will now be found wearing jewellery too. 70 may not seem like a lot, but there are literally millions of variations.

Mr Pockets

• You can search for information about items and NPCs through Mr Pockets. Mr Pockets lives outside the known Epitaph universe but very much enjoys rubbing his precious up and down your valuables.
• Items and NPCs update with Mr Pockets several times a day, however the changing and dynamic nature of MUDs, and the number of variables that combine together to configure items and NPCs mean that this data is naturally always "out of date".

Policy

• Epitaph now has an 18 age rating.
• A help page has been added for our complaints policy.
• A community policing system has been introduced.
• Some of the login text has changed a little. Eek's name added to the login screen.
• All copyright previously registered to the non-existent company Epitaph Online has now been replaced with copyright to the properly existing company Imaginary Realities Ltd.
• Epitaph code ownership policy has been updated to reflect the new existence of Imaginary Realities Ltd.
• Upon receiving your patch notification on login, you'll be given (sometimes) a blurb explaining in short the important aspects of the patch.

Professions

• Firefighter added as a profession.
• Solicitor added as a profession.
• Security Guard added as a profession.
• Mechanic added as a profession.
• Psychiatrist added as a profession.
• All professions give 500 points of free commands.

Remote Hacking

• A new game system has been added - remote hacking. You can use it to access remote servers and compromise them for whatever dirty little secrets they contain.
• You can buy the 'ssh' command in the normal manner. This is the command that permits you access to the hacking system. You will also need a computer with an Internet connection.
• You can 'ssh ping' remote IP addresses to see whether or not they are active. NPCs and such within the game will give you access to specific addresses.
• From your ssh command you can 'connect' to IP addresses to begin hacking. Each has a difficulty, a number of security measures, and a range of access levels. Your job is to escalate your permissions through the machine before the system realises what is being done and blacklists you.
• You can route your hacking traffic through any server that has been recently compromised. Doing so gives you a considerable bonus to the amount of time you have available to hack. Each extra server increases this bonus time, although you can only use each of these once.
• Not all computers are capable of hacking - they need a certain quality. Especially good computers will provide a hacking bonus.

Scavenging

• Chance of finding something when scavenging dramatically decreased.
• Items discovered while scavenging are now of much lower condition.
• The salvage command now allows you to salvage many items at once.
• You will occasionally find broken radios now when scavenging - these, like the normal radios, will yield radio innards when salvaged.
• When salvaged, clothes will now give scraps rather than strips.
• When computers are salvaged they now sometimes provide hard drives rather than computer innards.
• Scavenging is now skill-checked, with the difficulty being based on the danger level of the room you are currently searching.

Web

• Recent developments blog has closed, with the patches command taking its place.
• Blog links on the web front page put into tables, and finger links added for authors.
• New posts on the blogs will have a little skull by them on the web main page. New is defined as 'two or less days old'
• Link added to the patches page on the website. It'll always take you to the patch in development on Epitaph Black Ops.
• Text altered on numerous pages so as to more properly reflect our current designs and expectations.
• The format of finger has changed.
• Section on game features added to 'about us'
• Stats web app available which shows the same information as the new in-game 'stats' command.
• Check marks on achievements page changed to little skulls! See how cute they are!
• Your completed quests through the quest browser will now be marked with a little skull.
• Favivon added to the website.
• Tapatalk enabled for the forums.
• Tapatalk enabled for the blog, if you have access to Tapatalk 4.
• Blog posts now have many more sharing options at the bottom of the page.
• Root help page for the web now contains a full index of all help.
• Content warning added to all pages.
• Follow link for Epitaph's twitter added to the bottom of each page.
• Mouse hover giving the description of a knack has been added to the knack browser.
• You no longer need to be logged in to see the web based who's online link.
• epitaph.imaginary-realities.com and www.epitaph.imaginary-realities.com now redirect to http://epitaphonline.co.uk
• Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/EpitaphOnline updated with blurb and icon.
• New icons used on the board. More to follow in a gradual migration.

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