Volume One Issue Four

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../________________/      WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND HERE
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VOLUME ONE, ISSUE FOUR                                 Sept. 25th, 1994
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Hi! This is a special edition of the Legendary Times to acquaint you 
with the many changes taking place right now.

As I write this, Sadist is recompiling the code to install a set of 
changes. So here's a description of what is coming at you at high speed:

SKILL CHANGES:
- headbutt has been altered. It now has a chance of stunning the victim
  until the tick, not just until the next blow. This will make it more
  competitive with the new bardic entrance skill.
- However, a chance has also been added to headbutt that it stun the
  person headbutting if they hit.
- The tumble skill now also works on falling from failed headbutts
- it does the same for failed bashes
- ride is alittle less reliable in that wild mounts may try to throw 
  you or attack you when you try to mount them. There will be tame
  mounts you can ride safely however. Wild mounts may also try to
  throw you at other times.
- the alertness time on mobs who have been backstabbed has been made
  much shorter.
- Purify works.

SKILL ADDITIONS:
- the repair skill is now in. It will repair damaged metal armor, and
  will repair damaged weapons as well if you have the forge skill.
- mend is now in. It will repair cloth, fur, and leather armor.

Both of these two skills are already taught in the game, and those
of you who already have them should find them working fine.

BUG FIXES IN SPELLS:
- cause light no longer defaults to self
- blinding flash doesn't blind the caster anymore
- many spells that did not obey the clan restrictions are fixed
- countless little cosmetic problems with messages were fixed

NEW SPELLS:
- dancing sword is in; it can be cast on a weapon to animate it into
  a charmed follower.
- fly is now chantable
- flight which enables you to fly by growing wings on you has now been
  added.

ITEM DAMAGE:
This is the big change that is going in. From now on, there is a chance
that your armor and your weapon will be damaged by successful hits or
by blocked hits. Your sword may get dulled by hitting dragon scales too
many times, for example. If armor or weapons are damaged too much, they
may become useless or be destroyed. 

The chance of this happening depends entirely on how hard you hit and
what you are hitting. If you're fighting something that licks, it is
not likely to do much damage to your breast plate. An axe however may
very well put a dent in it. There are also now damage modifiers on
various attacks versus different armor types; you may get extra damage
when you fight a flame attack if you are wearing metal armor--and less
against a tangle attack. None of the damage modifiers exceed 25% above
or below. We expect that players will quickly discover things like what
weapon is best suited for tackling which sort of armor, and which attack
is just plain deadly almost regardless (dissolve, if you're curious.
Luckily, nothing much uses it. :) )

The mend and repair skills thus become very important for players. Maybe
we'll see some players specializing in tradesmanship.

Note that shopkeepers will not purchase damaged goods.

Magical items will not be as susceptible to damage, but the further
they are taken from magical areas the more vulnerable they become. This
is a preliminary implementation of the eventual restriction of magic
and tech skills and items to areas and eras that they are suited to.

END OF TESTING:
With these changes, testing is over for a while, and we will be
restoring the backed-up playerfiles starting around midnight Central 
Time tonight, Sept. 25th. As of Monday, the mud will be back to normal
again. Deaths will count, levels will count. We will still not have 
mudmail or boards until we move to a permanent site.

We are currently located at tramp.cc.utexas.edu 9999.

NEW SITE:
We're following up leads, and hope to have firm answers on possibles
by the end of the week. We're cramped at tramp, but we are not in
any immediate danger of vanishing. :)

APOLOGIES DUE TO NETCOM USERS:
For some reason, a mailer stuttered somewhere, and LT subscribers on
netcom.com got 5 to 7 copies of the last issue of the LT. Hopefully
that problem is resolved now; it does seem to be a mailer problem on
either my end or theirs. 

That's all for now; only social item I can think of is that during the
free-for-all of testing, Mercenary was killed by Revenant! A harbinger
of things to come? Stay tuned....

-Ptah