LucidMagic.net

Since I'm waiting for the 1.67 patch before I do a major update to Smith Hold, a lot of minor fixes and small changes aren't going to take affect until then.

However, I have made a few exceptions for really minor updates. This is where I'll post any tiny changes that don't warrent an announcement in the Smith Hold Updates! thread.

New Chapter of Oroon Rising!

Loremaster and Royal Librarian Bib "Leo" Teca has just aquired a new chapter in the ongoing Oroon Rising story by WotC bard Ed Greenwood. Visit Bib at the Fumesmith Hall Royal Library to read Chapter 9: Mysteries and Much Pain.

-420

Hey everyone, check out the readme for the 1.67 patch. 13 new creatures, 79 new placeables and 44 new scripting commands!

1.67 Patch Info

Now we can add/remove wings, tails, tattoos and prosthetics (hook hands and peg legs) through scripting. We will aso be able to change the name of non-PC object IN-GAME! (sweet)

-420

Sorrow's Furnace Date Announced     29 August 2005

We issued a press release today on the subject of the Sorrow's Furnace Update. As many fans surmised from last night's coded in-game messaging, Grenth's Footprint and Sorrow's Furnace will open on September 7th. Find the press release here.

Link

I think the "coded in-game messaging" has something to do with that weird line in the screen shot I posted of the end of PvP Extreme weekend. I'll have to examine it again.

-420

Check here for the full update: Link

Update â?? Thursday, August 25

Elementalist

    * Meteor: Lowered Energy cost to 5
       
    * Fireball: Lowered Energy cost to 10 and recharge time to 7 seconds
       
    * Chain Lightning: Increased cast time to 3 seconds; decreased damage to 10..85; changed recharge to 10 seconds; lowered maximum distance between targets
       
    * Glyph of Sacrifice: Reduced recharge penalty on next spell to 90 seconds
       
    * Mark of Rodgort: Reduced cast time to 1 second; increased duration of burning effect to 1..4 seconds

Mesmer

    * Cry of Frustration: Lowered casting time to .25 second
       
    * Mantra of Earth: Lowered Energy cost to 10
       
    * Mantra of Flame: Lowered Energy cost to 10
       
    * Mantra of Lightning: Lowered Energy cost to 10
       
    * Mantra of Frost: Lowered Energy cost to 10
       
    * Mantra of Recall: Lowered Energy cost to 10; lowered the amount of Energy you gain back to 3..28
       
    * Signet of Humility: Changed the related attribute to Inspiration Magic; changed duration of effect to scale from 1..16 seconds based on rank in Inspiration Magic
       
    * Shatter Hex: Reduced AOE to "nearby foes"; reduced damage to 30..120
       
    * Hex Breaker: Reduced duration to 15..90 seconds
       
    * Panic: Increased duration to 10..25 seconds; Increased AOE to "nearby foes"

Monk

    * Healing Seed: Lowered Energy cost to 10; Decreased duration to 10 seconds
       
    * Scourge Sacrifice: Now affects all adjacent targets
       
    * Restore Condition: Lowered Energy to 5; reduced the amount healed to 10..70
       
    * Healing Hands: Increased the amount healed to 5..30
       
    * Draw Conditions: Added 1 second recharge time
       
    * Divine Boon: Added 1 second recharge time
       
    * Protective Bond: Energy lost per hit increased to 6..3
       
    * Aegis: Now only affects party members

Necromancer

    * Putrid Explosion: Increased recharge time to 5 seconds
       
    * Consume Corpse: Decreased casting time to 1 second; increased Energy gained to 5..20
       
    * Blood Renewal: Increased Health regeneration to 3..6
       
    * Plague Signet: Decreased recharge time to 10 seconds
       
    * Deathly Chill: Increased secondary damage to 5..50
       
    * Dark Bond: Now affects all damage types, not just physical
       
    * Barbed Signet: Reduced recharge time to 20 seconds
       
    * Well of Suffering: Increased duration to 10..30 seconds; increased Health degeneration to 1..6
       
    * Grenth's Balance: Reduced recharge time to 15 seconds
       
    * Spinal Shivers: Increased duration to 10..40 seconds

Ranger

    * Pets: Increased pets' run speed by 20%; increased pets' armor to 80 at level 20
       
    * Crippling Shot: Decreased recharge time to 1 second; decreased duration of Cripple to 8 seconds
       
    * Distracting Shot: Decreased attack time from .75 to .5 seconds
       
    * Punishing Shot: Decreased attack time from .75 to .5 seconds; increased recharge time to 8 seconds
       
    * Concussion Shot: Decreased attack time from .75 to .5 seconds
       
    * Nature's Renewal: Modified to no longer remove all Hexes and Enchantments when cast; now doubles the Energy degeneration for maintained Enchantments
       
    * Fertile Season: Reduced duration to 15..45 seconds
       
    * Quickening Zephyr: Increased Energy cost to 25; reduced duration to 15..45 seconds
       
    * All Spirits: The effects of Spirits no longer work on other Spirits (example: Fertile Season no longer adds Health and armor to other Spirits); also, when a Spirit is cast, it kills all other allied Spirits of the same type within its range

Warrior

    * Dwarven Battle Stance: Increased duration to 5..11 seconds
       
    * "I Will Survive!": Decreased recharge time to 30 seconds
       
    * "I Will Avenge You!": Increased AOE to anywhere within your radar

All Skills

    * Skills with a recharge time can no longer be reduced to 0 (example: if a spell has 1 second recharge time and you have both Quickening Zephyr and Serpent's Quickness active, the length of the recharge time will not drop below 1 second)

Note: All skill ranges are for Attribute Level 0 through 15. For example, "Fertile Season: reduced duration to 15..45 seconds" would indicate that with 0 Attribute points, the duration would be 15 seconds, and with 15 Attribute points, the duration would be 45 seconds.

Arena.net is going to roll out a large number of skill balance changes this weekend. In addition they will be offering more faction points than normal for tournaments, high-level arenas and guild battles from Friday August 26th to Sunday August 28th!

Read about it here: Link

-420

OK, I am sworn not to tell anyone anything about the trial, but that's cool because it's more fun to talk about the slack-jawed idiots bumping around the halls (and I'm not talking about just the lawyers).

Well, the day started off promisingly, when I looked online and discovered my jury group, out of the dozens listed, had been moved to a courthouse just down the street from my home. I got ready, grabbed my Harry Potter book and walked down to the couthouse, marveling at how early the crack heads get up to start their daily crack-search.

The court metal detector was no problem and I soon found myself relaxing in a movie-theater type seat with about 300 other people. Now, I use the term "people" loosely, keep in mind this is all taking place in downtown San Francisco.

The first thing I noticed was that, despite the fact that the letter they send has your jury number, jury group number, name and address, date and location of the jury summons AND the contact information for jury-related services, there were people that were late (not just hours late but days late), they showed up in the wrong place and there was one guy that didn't even have his own jury summons. "Sir,  that isn't even your name on the jury summons. You aren't the person that was summoned."

I am dead serious folks, this was the point at which I payed $1.75 for a stale donut.

Eventually, after many other people were called to various courtrooms and even other courthouses (hah! suckers!), my name was called and I had to negotiate a couple huge fatasses that were trying to shuffle through the double door together creating a tuperware-tight seal on the only exit.

But I digress, I ended up in a courtroom with exactly 66 other potential jurers (don't ask how I know that number, I assure you it's very boring). We got a short introduction then most of us were excused for two hours while the rest stayed behind to make up excuses for why they were too important to be in a jury.

At this point it became obvious that I needed to find my favorite hole-in-the-wall bar near Civic Center, my only refuge when serving jury duty or while my car is getting smog checked. I met another jurer (am I spelling that right, looks stupid) from my group and we had a laugh about all the mutants in the courtroom we just left.

I meant to stay for one drink but the bartender decided to pour me a few and tell me about the man who wants to shoot her and how he is getting out of jail tomorrow but that's OK because that's the day he must show up to court for attempted murder charges. Those were all the details I could get between drunken old people yelling (this is all still before noon), the strange women comming in to pick up "their money" and the guys selling DVD's of movies currently showing in the theater.

Anyway, around one I amble back into the courtroom and continue to read Harry Potter (man that kid has some shitty luck). At this point they have randomely selected 18 people to sit in the jury and asked them a lot of boring questions. A bunch got excused and a bunch got randomely called up to take their place.

After about an hour of this the beer must have gotten bored because it wanted to go so I asked the baliff if I could piss. As I'm leaving I hear the judge call, "Why has he been excused?" but I also hear the call of nature, guess which one I ignore. Well, apparently I started some sort popular trend because when I turned to leave the restroom there was a line that consisted of every male from the courtroom I had just left as well as the district attorny and the defendant, all thanking me for prompting the judge to give us a bathroom break.

The judge made it clear I was to ask her next time I had to use the facilities and she would call a recess. I think there is going to be a lot of recesses during this trial.

Anyway, they asked the new replacements the same boring questions and excused some more people. They just didn't excuse new people, they excused some that they questioned earlier but didn't excuse the first time. What in the f***?!?!?

So, by the time I started to actually tell jokes to the few remaining potential jury people and the baliff, it looked like we were getting close to time for us to head home. Unfortunatly someone suddenly lost the ability to speak english and another person had some kind of flashback to an incident in her life that made her too emotionally distraught to make a fair decission and I was called up along with a deaf man (who also didn't speak english).

Well, it was looking pretty good after the last batch of people were asked to leave, despite the fact I wasn't one of them. I even told the story about how, when I was around 9, my babysitter's ex-boyfriend forced his way into my house to beat my babysitter and I had to chase him off with an aluminum bat!

The top two rows had the 12 selected jury members and the two "alternates" 13 & 14 sat to my right. I was going to get to go home having done my civic duty! I was only going to have to go through one day of idiotic legal babble and probbing personal questions!

But no, suddenly the greesy little baggy-jeaned teenage f*** to my right suddenly doesn't understand what "alternate" means and the fact of this realization startles the poor greesy pre-pube so much that he loses all ability to speak and even the ability to nod and shake his head. After it becomes clear that the only response the judge is going to get from this jerk is a sort of grunting noise while his head makes this curious circular motion she exuses him and I get to be Alternate #2.

Now, just to let some of you less civicly inclined people know, Alternate #2 gets the great job of showing up every day, listening to all the testimony, paying attention to all the details and taking notes without all of the hassle of actually DOING ANYTHING. That is, unless not one, but two people suddenly come down with some mysterious ailment (I'm hoping for lung cancer, only thing that can take them down in a weeks time)

I think I will bring things to throw at people tomorrow.

-420

I forgot to post that we will be going on vacation for a week. So there you go, everyone update your calenders. Oh and we are back now too!

-420

Quick Guild Tip:

When selling items that you can get from "specialty traders", make sure to sell to those traders and not the merchants. The merchants will give you the base price of the item while a trader will give you the going rate according to supply and demand.

For example, this item dropped for me when I killed a boss:
[attachmentid=474]

It was worth 86 gold to a merchant, but when I took it to a scroll trader he gave me a price based on the going rate:
[attachmentid=475]

So if I had sold to a merchant I would have been out 1,200 gold.

Items this should work for include Crafting Material, Rare Crafting Material, Runes and scrolls.

-420

[attachment deleted by admin]

SPOILER ALERT![/span][/span]

This is a quick guide to get through Guild Wars while doing the least amount of missions possible (I just hate them so much!) Remember to talk to anyone with a [span style=\'color:green\'][span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']![/span][/span] above their head to get all of the quests.

You can beat the game by only doing 10 missions and here's how:
[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Ascalon[/span] (map)
Start in Ascalon City
West then North to Piken Square
West then North to Grendich Courthouse
West then North to Yak's Bend

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']North Shiverpeaks[/span] (map)
Start in Yak's Bend
North then West to Ice Tooth Caves
South to Beacon's Perch
West then South to Gates of Kryta

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Kryta[/span] (map)
Start in Gates of Kryta
West then South to Lion's Arch
North then West to Bergen Hot Springs
West to Temple of the Ages (Get a guild member to help with this one!)
West then South to Fisherman's Haven
South to Sanctum Cay [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Crystal Desert[/span] (map)
Start in Amnoon Oasis
East to Augury Rock
South to Dune's of Despair (From Augury Rock) [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]
East to Thirsty River (From Augury Rock) [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]
North to Elona Reach (From Augury Rock) [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]
Return to Augury Rock [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]
Augury Rock mission to Dragon's Lair [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Southern Shiverpeaks[/span] (map)
Start in Droknar's Forge
North to Copperhammer Mines
East to Iron Mines of Moladune
South to Marhan's Grotto
East to Thunderhead Keep [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Ring of Fire[/span] (map)
Start in Ember Light Camp
North to Ring of Fire [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/span]
Ring of Fire mission to Abaddon's Mouth [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/size]
Abaddon's Mouth mission to Hell's Precipice [span style=\'color:red\']Do Mission![/color]

Hell's Precipice is the final mission congrats you beat the Guild Wars!

Important Links:
Interactive Map
420's Guide to the 15 attribute point quests.
420's Guide to Infusion.
420's Guide to Weapon Upgrades.

-420

Here is the current situation regarding how Damage Absorption works in Guild Wars. Apparently this has changed in patches before so it may change again.

Right now it looks like 1 piece of armor, 1 rune and a shield with Damage Absorption will stack. Getting multiple pieces of armor or multiple runes with Damage Absorption won't do anything.

Read about it here.

-420

I finally had the time to tour the sparkly new GodSpire but ran into some problems:

1. Vash is missing so there is no way to get to Illuvitar City.

2. There is an entrance to the House of the Bear in both the Halls of Illuvitar and Illuvitar City. So if you enter from Illuvitar City then leave it will put you in the Halls.

3. Spellshold (caster arena) and the Circus Maximus embassy areas seem to be missing completely.

4. The healing lights heal you regardless if you are in a duel or in a combat state.

5. The healing lights removes the dueling lights (and possibly the sent/guardian lights as well).

Those are the only major problems I have run into so far.

-420

Bioware just announed its next Premium Module! Not only is it going to be their biggest one yet, but it takes place in the Forgotten Realms!

There was a big question about how much of a hastle and how expensive trying to license new FR modules was going to be. Looks like Bioware worked it all out.

This is the big one folks! Right on the heels of glowing eyes, stools that point the right direction and cure spells that do positive damage to undead!

This is just more proof that NWN will never die.

Pirates of the Sword Coast

-420

This is a quick guide to weapons and weapon upgrades in Guild Wars, enjoy! -420

Weapons, Shields and Focuses (Foci?)[/span]

Sword 15-22 Damage
Axe 6-28 Damage
Hammer 19-35 Damage
Bow 15-28 Damage
Wand 11-22 Damage
Staff 11-22 Damage +10 Energy
Shield 16 Armor
Focus +12 Energy

*Note[/span]: These are the max stats for items dropped by level 20+ creatures. For instance, an axe dropped by a level 10 CHarr Axe Fiend may have max possible stats of 4-17, while the same type of axe dropped by a level 24 Jade Axe would have max possible stats of 6-28.

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Weapon Upgrades[/span]
Weapons that can be upgraded can have 2 upgrades, the "upper" upgrade giving the weapon a new prefix in its name and the "lower" one giving it a new suffix.

Sword Sword Hilt/Sword Pommel
Axe Axe Haft/Axe Grip
Hammer Hammer Haft/Hammer Grip
Bow Bow String/Bow Grip
Staff Staff Head/Staff Wrapping

As you can see, a staff is a superior choice over a wand/focus combo even though a max focus potetially gives +2 more energy because only a staff can have upgrades.

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Natrual Weapon Mods[/span]
In addition to upgrades a weapon may have what I call a single natural mod. This may be something like "+15% Damage (While Health is above 50%)". An item can have only one natural mod and since it is not an upgrade it cannot be salvaged and applied to a different item. You can see all the natural mods with their max stats by creating a PvP only character and looking at the PvP weapons.

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Salvaging Weapon Upgrades[/span]
When using an Expert Salvage Kit there is a good chance you can salvage one upgrade from a weapon. If you try to salvage an upgrade from a weapon with 2 upgrades you may get one or the other upgrade randomely or no upgrade at all, either way the weapon (and any upgrade on it) is destroyed in the process.

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Weapon Types[/span]
[span style=\'color:blue\']Blue weapons[/span] usually have a low level natural mod (the most common being "highly salvagable" and "precious") and sometimes have a single low level upgrade.

[span style=\'color:purple\']Purple weapons[/span] usually have the max stats (see the [span style=\'color:red\']note[/span] under "Max Item Stats" at the top) and lower than normal requirements. They may have natural mods or upgrades.

[span style=\'color:orange\']Orange weapons[/span] often have a high level natural mod and one or two high level weapon upgrades.

[span style=\'font-size:13pt;line-height:100%\']Example Weapons[/span]
Notice the difference in the level of axe mastery required to use the purple axe as compared to the other three.

[attachmentid=380]
[span style=\'color:blue\']Sundering Chaos Axe of Axe Mastery[/span]
Max Stats
Upper Upgrade: Sundering Axe Haft (6% chance)
Lower Upgrade: Axe Grip of Axe Mastery (10% chance)
Cusomized

[attachmentid=381]
[span style=\'color:orange\']Icy Battle Axe of Enchanting[/span]
Natrual Mod: +20% damage while health is below 50%
Upper Upgrade: Icy Axe Haft
Lower Upgrade: Axe Grip of Enchanting (16% longer)
Customized


[attachmentid=382]
[span style=\'color:orange\']Piercing Axe of Shelter[/size]
Max Stats (Natural Piercing Damage!)
Natural Mod: +15% damage while hexed
Lower Upgrade: Axe Grip of Shelter (+6 armor vs. physical)

[attachmentid=383]
[span style=\'color:purple\']Cruel Spiked Axe of Axe Mastery[/color]
Max Stats
Upper Upgrade: Cruel Axe Haft
Lower Upgrade: Axe Grip of Axe Mastery (10% chance)
Customized

Please reply with any questions, corrections or suggestions!

[attachment deleted by admin]

Hey Mo, take a look at this, froze GodSpire earlier today:

[attachmentid=342]

-420

[attachment deleted by admin]

Check out this link.

Any of them seem familiar?

-420

NOTE: Make sure you check out both page 1 and 2.