Game updates/2006 November

Update - Thursday November 30

• Made preparations for the Domain of Anguish event.
• Added 2 new quests in Istan and 6 new quests in the Realm of Torment.
• Modified monster |behavior so that they now prefer targets within their guard ranges.
• Fixed several reported bugs with follower NPCs in order to improve their combat performance.
• Removed the "kiting" behavior of henchmen in the first round of basic training in order to give new players an easier introduction to PvP.

Skill Updates:

• Aria of Zeal: Increased casting time to 2 seconds.
• Cyclone Axe: Modified so that it now requires an enemy target.
• Energizing Finale: Increased the Energy cost to 10 and reduced the amount of energy gained per shout or chant to 1.
• "Incoming!": Increased Energy cost to 10 and decreased duration to 1..5 seconds.
• Jagged Bones: Modified so that it may now be used on allied minions.
• Restful Breeze: Modified so that its behavior more accurately matches its description.
• "Stand Your Ground!": Increased energy cost to 10.
• "Watch Yourself!": Changed armor gain to 5..25, based on the Tactics attribute.

GuildWiki notes

• The new quests are:
  • Istan:
    • Sunspear Great Hall:
      • Rising Suns, Re-enlist Rojis
  • Realm of Torment (1 missing):
    • Gate of Torment:
      • The Missing Patrol, The Oddbodies, Good Demon Hunting
    • Gate of Fear / Gate of Pain: (Forgotten Keeper gives the quests in either outpost)
      • Into the Fire, The Last Patrol

• Razah is now available for unlocking at the Priests of Balthazar, for 50,000 faction. (According to Gaile Gray, Razah's cost will be reduced to around 6,000 faction in an update on December 1st.)
• The Miniature Varesh is now bigger and wields a scythe.
• The Xunlai Tournament Agents are now walking around Kamadan, Lion's Arch and Kaineng Center telling world about the Winterfest 2006 Tournament.
• When an NPC has a quest reward to offer, or is part of a quest and you need to talk to them to move on, they now display a downward-pointing green arrow instead of the green exclamation point.
• Torment creatures created by Call to the Torment no longer award Lightbringer points. It is also suspected that this is the update which prevented resurrected monsters from counting multiple times for bounties.
• Freezing Gust now correctly causes damage instead of the slow effect when the target is affected by any Water Magic hex. Previously, some hexes, such as Shard Storm and Shatterstone were not recognized and caused the slow effect instead.
• Archivist Zisthus and Commander Thurnis in the Gate of Torment now have dialogue, and Churrazek has been re-added there.
• Keeper Millzesh has been added to Abaddon's Gate.
• The And a Hero Shall Lead Them quest was changed. Only Elonian born characters now require the rank of Sunspear General in order to complete it, whereas foreign characters may continue without this requirement.
• The following bugs were introduced
  • The ghosts spawned by Ghost in the Box's remain in a town permanently. (This was fixed in a subsequent build the same day.)
  • During the Feeding Frenzy quest, Toma will not use the Feeding Frenzy skill, making the quest impossible to complete. This was fixed in a subsequent update.
• It appears that international districts may have a bug which prevents characters from some regions accessing the same instance. This is demonstrated by the lesser number of people in Droknar's Forge International and Ascalon City International.
• Description of Razah in a language other than English reads only "Ritualist of unknown origin."
• Good Demon Hunting is now fixed and can be completed.

Update - Wednesday November 29

This update was undocumented and no update notes appear on www.guildwars.com.

GuildWiki notes

• Fixed the bug introduced in the previous update that disallowed players from equipping bonus weapons.

Update - Tuesday November 28

• Made preparations for the Chinese closed beta test.
• Fixed several infrequent client crash bugs.

GuildWiki notes

• This update seems to have introduced a new bug where your bonus items cannot be equipped. (This bug has now been fixed)
• A drop box for choosing your region upon login has been added. Available regions are: China\CT, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Default. [Note: This option does not change your region, it is most likely part of the closed Chinese betas]
• A login button has replaced the helm icon.
• This update fixed a long standing issue with the game in which certain firewalls and other Internet security programs to recommend blocking the game's access when it was first installed or when it is updated. Now the default recommendation is to allow the game access to the internet.

Update - Wednesday November 22

• Fixed a bug that prevented some players from joining parties in the Team Arenas.
• Fixed a bug and made improvements to the following quest: Reclaiming the Temple.

Update - Tuesday November 21

• Added new guild emblems created from winning concepts in the Nightfall Guild Emblem Contest.
• Added two new commands, /bonus and /special, to create items that were previously created using the /bonusitems command. The /bonus command creates items that may be created many times (such as preorder items). The /special command creates items that may be created only once per account (such as collector’s edition items).
• Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following quests: Skale and Magic Compass, Data Mining, A Peaceful Solution, Feeding Frenzy, A Message for Janeera, Sunspears in Cantha, Sunspears in Kryta, The Zenos Squad, Servants of Grenth, Heart or Mind: Garden in Danger, The Foolhardy Father, What Do You Do With a Drunken Shauben.
• Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following missions: Nahpui Quarter, Dragon’s Lair, Riverside Province.
• Set the minimum level to 20 for Random Arenas, Jade Quarry, and Fort Aspenwood.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Zenmai from responding to players in Bukdek Byway.
• Fixed several bugs in the Dajkah Inlet challenge mission.
• Added unique Divine Auras for the Paragon and Dervish, available to players who own the Collector’s Edition of Guild Wars Prophecies.
• Made the Ebon Dust Aura skill available for capture.
• Modified profession changers so that they give players Paragon and Dervish skills when these secondary professions are selected.
• Fixed a bug with the Healer's Boon skill. Its extra healing bonus now applies to all healed characters, not just the first person healed.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Blood Bond skill to give a larger than expected Health degeneration in some cases.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Heroes to use targeted Shouts on targets who were out of range.
• Fixed a bug that allowed PvP characters to select secondary professions from campaigns they don't own.
• Improved the art and/or sound for the following creatures: Toshau Sharpspear, Whistling Thornbrush, and Jacaranda plant creatures.
• Fixed several word gender problems for European languages.

GuildWiki notes

• "Gates of Torment" has been renamed to "Gate of Torment". Likewise, "Gates of Desolation" has been renamed to "Gate of Desolation".
• The quest "Hunting Abaddon" has been renamed to Good Demon Hunting, however, the quest giver, Churrazek, has been removed from the Gate of Torment.
• The merchants in Lair of the Forgotten, The Mouth of Torment and Ruins of Morah now sell Ancient Elonian Keys. Prior to this update they used to mistakenly sell Margonite Keys. Aisu in Crystal Overlook still sells Margonite Keys rather than Ancient Elonian Keys.
• The patch client has been once again translated into Polish (It was reverted to English about 2 weeks ago). Polish in-game text is still unavailable.
• Preceptor Zunark's profession has been changed from Dervish to Monk.
• Buhon Icelord is suspected to have been added to The Floodplain of Mahnkelon in this update, but may have been added in the 20th or 22nd update.

Update - Monday November 20

• Fixed a bug in the Jennur's Horde mission that made it possible for Margonite corpses to accumulate endlessly.

GuildWiki notes

• The experience gained from duplicated creatures has been removed.

Update - Friday November 10

• Added the extra Prerelease Bonus Pack character slot to accounts that have both the Nightfall Prerelease Bonus Pack and the Nightfall PvP Edition access keys.
• Updated the translations for the npc "Shiloh [Hero Skills]" in the map Sunspear Great Hall.
• Updated Corsair bosses Midshipman Morolah and Admiral Chiggen so that the bosses drop their correct unique item.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the skills “Rampage as One” and “Strike as One” to activate without a living pet. (This was missed in the last build)
• Fixed a bug that caused the boss "Zelnehlun Fastfoot" to not attack.
• Fixed a bug preventing some monsters from fighting in the Consulate Docks mission.
• Fixed a bug which allowed the attacking team in the Isle of Solitude Guild Hall to open the gate to the defending team’s base.
• Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following quests: "Signs and Portents," "No Me, No Kormir," and "Sunspears in Cantha."
• The most recent "My Guild Battles" game is now visible to members of the participating Guilds for up to 24 hours (previously the time was only one hour).

GuildWiki notes

• The skills "Hidden Caltrops" and "Extend Conditions" are now available for capture.
• Shahai the Cunning's level has been raised from 16 to 20.
• The icons for resurrection shrines and collectors are added in the Mission Maps for Tyria and Cantha
• Churrazek and the Hunting Abaddon quest were added to Gate of Torment, as were Archivist Zisthus and Commander Thurnis.
• The skill description of Signet of Capture now clearly states that it can only be used to capture skills for your own profession.

Update - Tuesday November 7

• Added 2 new item inscriptions: “Show me the money!” and “Measure for Measure.”
• Removed collision between members of the same team, including minions and pets. This change applies only to roleplaying missions and areas.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes kept players from getting credit for kills made by their minions and pets.
• Modified the quest “Capturing the Signet of Capture” so that it is available only to players created in Elona.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some Hero skill templates from being applied to players.
• Fixed a bug that made it impossible for some players to capture the “Avatar of Lyssa” skill.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the skills “Rampage as One” and “Strike as One” to activate without a living pet.
• Made the “Crippling Slash” skill available for capture.
• Fixed a bug that caused the camera to recenter itself during spell casting.
• Fixed a bug in the Jokanur Diggings mission.
• Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following quests: Sunspears in Kryta, Missing Shipment, To Dye For, Scholarly Affairs, and Tendering an Offer.

GuildWiki notes

• Priests of Balthazar do not offer the two new inscriptions for unlocking. The inscriptions replaced the old 'Precious' and 'Highly salvagable' mods. Item drops that would have previously been marked 'Precious' are now instead marked 'Improved sale value'.
• Sogolon now has different dialogue in outposts.
• Spirits now register as a circle (same as characters) instead of a triangle (NPCs) on the mini-map.
• Replaced the Whispers Informant with a Wandering Priest in Turai's Procession.
• Fixed a bug where some items, such as Luxon Totems, were unstackable.
• Skins for PvP Healing Prayers and Protection Prayers staves and wands have been updated.
• Rampage as One has not been updated and can be used while the pet is dead
• Rune Traders now list Insignias before Runes, and list runes in the same profession order as the character creation screen rather than listing them alphabetically.
• If you have the quest Capturing the Signet of Capture on your quest log before the update, it will stay there

Update - Friday November 3

GuildWiki notes

• Added the Sunspear Arena for players under Level 10 to northeast of Kamadan.
• The armor crafter in Stingray Strand has been renamed from 'Crafter' to 'Sol Pyrrhus' in this update or an earlier update.

Update - Thursday November 2

End of Halloween Event

Now sadly, the madness is ended
Laughs abounded and no tears were shed
King Thorn has returned to the Underworld
Pumpkin still very much on his head.

No more scares for Elona and Tyria
No more transformations or spooky décor
Peace comes at last, though we can’t help but ask:
Will the Mad King return once more?!

Game Updates:

• Modified damage text so that its size scales based on the distance from the viewer.
• Fixed various quest NPCs that were inappropriately body-blocking players.
• Added an option to adjust the damage text size.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Heroes to equip more than one elite skill.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some dyes from stacking.
• Fixed a bug that caused skills requiring upkeep to be removed whenever cinematics began.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the Lightbringer Title bonus to be used during PVP matches.
• Modified the Trade panel to report offered trades in units of gold, not platinum.
• Removed the previously enforced time delay between fighting and salvaging or identifying an item.
• Increased duration on the skill "Exposed Defenses" (sic) to 5..20 seconds. (This update was missing in the previous skill update.)

GuildWiki notes

• Total size of this update is about 70 MB.
• There is one 25g Dye that you may get from the quest "To Dye For". It still doesn't stack, and is not intended to, with the normal 1g Dyes.
• The icon for resurrection shrines in the Mission Map has changed to a circle with an ankh inside.
• Air, Earth, Fire, and Water Attunements now give the proper amount for all skills (energy cost * 30% + 1). There was a previous bug that caused 10 energy skills to only give back the 30%, which has now been fixed.
• The condition runes for all professions have been changed to major runes and are now non-stacking; before, equipping 5 runes made the player immune to 2 conditions NOTE: This is not totally true, before having 5 of them made you immune to some condition sources - The effectiveness of having 5 runes seemed to depend on the source of the condition (IE: Where as standing in the Student of Bleedings circle might not give you bleeding, using Signet of Agony would still make you bleed for about 5 seconds)
• Weapon modifers to conditions (example: crippling) now note that they are stackable. Stackable with what is unclear, but it is assumed to be skills that increase the duration of these effects.
• The option to adjust damage text size is found in the options general panel.
• The Character Select Screen now seems to remember your sorting option.
• Some xp scrolls still don't stack.