Welcome to Lost Realms version 4.0

[Omen]

Hello everyone.

Its been two long years since we begun working on new version of Lost Realms. A lot of arguing, 12 hours long discussions, midnight coding and countless emails written between teambers accured since then. Some of us had to go due to RL issues, some new people joined us but despite all the delays and retries we have managed to complete most of the planned things by now.
You will see a lot from the old Lost Realms anywhere you look but you will also notice new things where ever you go.

Most important changes follow:

The concept of Amber Shadows (aka realms) has came into play. All of Lost Realms world was split in several Realms.

Skills were completely reworked, no more huge bloated hard to understand system that affected old Lost Realms so much. The new solution should please most of our players, especially those who stayed here since the version 1.

PK system was completely rebalanced, you may have to readjust your play style now.

Exping and epsing most probably became more time consuming but defenetly more balanced than before.

And the list goes on and on...

At a later time news messages will be added in game fully revealing details on how they will affect you and the game overall.

Now the fun part begins

We want a several playtesters to our assistance so we could see how things look from another point of view. Those of you who will participate in that playtesting - feel free to express your feelings in this forum.

More to come in the near future.

-Omen

[Gray]

The world map was changed a lot. It is now split into realms and reshaped.
There are certain spots where you can travel between shadows (real help realms
for details). Areas are mostly the same as before (just linked otherwise), but
there are exceptions.

Several new areas are now in the game!


1. New zones in western Middle Earth realm.

These are places for newbie whities to exp, full of low to average level
mobiles. They are definitely far from pk grounds and thus safe.

Builder: Skyhawk.


2. Koschebruch watermill

This is actually quite old area, which was unlinked some years ago. Now it is
rebuilt, it's entrance maze is more sane now, and the boss of this area is
smarter now... consider yourself warned.

Former builder: Algernon.
New maze and scripting: Gray.


3. The Stronghold.

It is home of the new race - gnolls, and also safe place to exp for midlevel
darkies.

Builder: Marduk.

[Gray]

Class system is history now. You start a noclass char; skills and spells you
learn define your character class. You can not learn infinite amount of skills
anymore - it is limited by your practice points. One practice point can be used
to learn one skill or spell. You gain these points at level-ups. After certain
level you stop gaining them, this level depends on your stats. Class-specific
items are gone.

There are just 5 guilds now: fighter, weaponsmaster, thief, ranger and
spellcaster. You can learn skills from any guildmaster of your side, but spells
can be learned from gm of the same race with you only. Obviously, because of
this reason every race is unable to learn certain spells. There is only way to
avoid this restriction and gain access to every last spell in the game: to
complete quests given by mobs guarding two sources of power in this world -
Pattern and Logrus. It has a drawback, though: knowledge in spells of opposed
origins will be reduced if you practice both Pattern and Logrus spells.

Quest points and boring monotonous questing are gone. In most cases you are
free to practice skills in any guilds (available to your race). Just in some
exceptional cases you will have to complete special quests to gain ability to
practice in certain guilds.

So, guild restrictions go as follows:
- Fighter - somewhat restricted to scout, friendly to weaponsmaster,
opposed to spellscaster guilds
- Weaponsmaster - friendly to figher and scout, somewhat restricted to
sorcerer, restricted to pattern/logrus
- Scout - somewhat restricted to fighter, friendly to weaponsmaster,
restricted to sorcerer, opposed to pattern/logrus
- Sorcerer - opposed to fighter, somewhat restricted to weaponsmaster,
restricted to scout, friendly to pattern/logrus
- Pattern - opposed to fighter/scout/logrus, restricted to
weaponsmaster, friendly to sorcerer
- Logrus - opposed to fighter/scout/pattern, restricted to
weaponsmaster, friendly to sorcerer
- Ranger - neutral to any other guilds.

Train command is gone. You can still train skills and spells by using, but
there is cap on train bonus now - you will not gain more than slight bonus from
training. This means you can not have both warrior and scout skills at 100% at
the same time, for example.

Also, certain races have hardcoded skill restrictions. Giants and trolls are
too dumb to learn any spells or scout skills (even pattern/logrus quests won't
help with it), dwarves and orcs can not backstab, and so on.

Weapon skill system was completely changed too, rely to 'help weapon' for
more detailed information.

[Gray]

Objects in the game undergone thorough examination and fixing, with purpose
to make them more balanced. Following list shows the most important changes:

- Stats of all melee weapons were changed. Generally, axes, hammers, spears
and flails became way more useful than before, bare hands (and knuckles) - way
less overpowered than before, swords, piercers and twohanded weapons were
changed slightly. New flail weapon was added to the game - to make this
weaponclass competitive with others (seek, and you get it).

- Weapon speed is not meaningless anymore. If speed of one weapon is twice as
high as speed of another, delay between two hits of the first weapon will be
exactly 2x less (at average). However, slow weapons are usually heavy and
inflict decent damage per hit.

- There is now strict correlation between weapon weight and speed. All
slashing, cleaving and crushing weapons of the same weight have same speed;
same applies to all piercers, stabbers and knuckles. However, piercer will be
slightly faster than slasher of the same weight.

- As consequence, bare hands became the fastest weapon. They, however, do way
less damage than before. Knuckles improve barehand damage significantly better
than in the previous game version; though they do not offer as much OB anymore.

- All weapons gained extra keywords which reflect their weapon class: sweapon,
cweapon and so on. Read 'help weapons' for more details.

- Weapons and magic jewelry lost their insane bonuses. There will be no more
40 OB swords or 10 DB rings.

- There is now more sense in 'magic' attribute of weapons. As before, it means
one of two things: either weapon is enchanted by spell (and this enchant can be
dispelled), or it is magical by nature. At least one weapon in the each weapon
class became naturally magical; this, however, does not mean that these weapons
inflict best damage in their class. Some weapons, by all means enchantable,
lost their 'magic' flags; some gained it.

- Some non-weapon objects lost their 'magic' attribute as well. Seek for
better container for your scrolls than a plain backpack, if you are going to
duel a dragon!

- Weights and costs of the most objects were adjusted as well. Generally, the
more useful is an item, the more it costs. Within one armour set price is
proportional to item weight (and thus to amount of metal needed to forge it).
Expect even more balancing changes here.

- Most armour sets were finally completed. Seek for new armour pieces; in most
cases they load on the same NPC which load other pieces of the same armour set.
Also several items were added to forge list; old forges were balanced as well,
so forging different armour pieces which require same talent will bring almost
the same profit per metal bar.

- Attack spell/saving spell affects on different items are scaled to more
detailed level now. Generally you can assume that +40 AS means the same as
+1 AS before (similarly for SS), but there are exceptions. There is now
physical meaning in these values: 10 AS give you as much spellpower as 1 extra
real level (or 10 levels above level 40). -10 SS on your equipment still
counter 10 AS of your enemy's gear.

- Mail armour now reduces your spell power too, though not as much as plate
armour.

- Nonsense bonuses and maluses were removed from some armours. From now, helms
will not hinder your agility (unless through weight), boots will not improve
your chance to hit enemy, and so on.


There can be indeed some bugs and just typos on object stats. Please, report
them using the following ways:
- If you have found, for example, a berry that weights 10 pounds or a piece of
common armour that costs thousands of gold (i.e. my obvious typo in stats) -
mail to me directly.
- If you have found discrepancy between object description and it's keywords,
or typo in desc (i.e. a thing that any high god can fix) - report it using
the usual way.
- If you think your preferred weaponclass became slightly less powerful... err
COMPLETELY USELESS AND UNBALANCED - hush and try to find a tactic that makes it
more useful: there IS a least one, I promise. In any case no whines will be
accepted during at least a month since date of opening LR-4 (minimal time
needed to adapt to the new system).

-- Gray, your new Master of Objects

[Gray]

- Death system was throughly redone. From now, if you receive some damage from
the opposite side player, for some time your death will be pkdeath no matter of
actual death reason. This means: if you have beaten some enemy player, he ran
and died somewhere (bloodlacked, dt'ed, mobbed - doesn't matter), he still
loses wps (if any) and exp, and you gain them. In case enemy was beaten by
several players, wps and exp are split among them in equal parts. The larger
is group of killers, the less wps victim loses - this is done to discourage
overkillers.
Also, wp gain is now level-based. If you kill a lowbie, you gain just 1 wp,
but legend kill yields 5 wps.

- Trophy system was changed quite some. Firstly, 'mob' command is gone, both
mob and player trophy are displayed by 'trophy' command. Then, you now gain exp
(and trophy) proportional to damage you deal, and you gain no exp for kill
itself. You can finally exp in groups without fear of ruining your trophy!

- Weight malus is back in the game! You can not run around carrying 3 full
plate armor sets freely. Your carrying capacity limit depends on your strength.
If you carry more than your strength allows you, your movement cost starts to
increase, while dodge bonus decreases.

- Regeneration system was floatized. You are not limited to gaining max 4 hps/
/moves/mana per second anymore. Basic regen is based on stats (con for hps and
moves, wil for mana), then come item/skill modifiers and position modifiers.
Certain actions increase regens as well. Also, one of the ancient objects has
gained move regen bonus again.
At average, regens decreased compared to the previous game version. However,
well-built and well-equipped characters are now able to benefit from higher
regens than before!

- You will now attempt to flee even if bashed or knocked out, if your hps go
below your autowimpy setting. If an attempt was successful, and there is at
least one open exit from the room - you will recover before stun delay expires,
and flee away. Without any exits, or with closed exits, wimpy setting will not
help you to recover any faster.

- Knockout skill was renamed into knockdown, it doesn't inflict as great
damage as before anymore; it's success chance was randomized (as well as
success chance of bash skill), and it doesn't depend on weight anymore. Now
knock is more like fast version of barehanded bash.

[Gray]

- Mobs became more dangerous than before. In LR3 you were able to kill lev30
mobs on lev3 - it will not work anymore. Pay attention to the output of
'consider' command if you don't want to mobdie; this especially applies to
lowbie spellcasters. As for supermobs - they became EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, in
many cases not killable solo, sometimes not even killable in group of two
players; DO NOT EVEN TRY TO KILL THEM SOLO (at least not for the first time),
or do not whine about mobdeaths! Also, DO NOT EVEN ENTER smob areas if you are
not sure that you manage - sometimes the only way to leave some place is to
kill its boss!

- Backstab skill doesn't instantly kill, even if you stab in the head or neck
of your victim!

- Doors rebuilt by 'rebuild door' skill will magically return to the original
size after certain time (not just on zone repops); also, if you are sitting at
a door, you will notice that someone started to rebuild it from another side.

- Rent cost was increased eight times as much (linkrent included). Hopefully,
this will make people actually use inns instead of linkrenting.

- It is now way easier to lose good align. You kill just a few good-aligned
mobs, and you fall from max good to max evil. Gaining align is as slow as it
was in LR-3. Use common sense to determine mob align (descs, race) and avoid
killing good mobs if you don't want good artifacts to zap you.

- Bash + escape produced nasty bug before: it putted opponent into infinite
delay (our known cheater warlorded his stabber using it). Fixed now.

- Failed attempt to steal from someone forced the victim to yell about it.
Now it works like this for mobs only; players are free to communicate on their
will.

- Effects of the 'web' spell (renamed to 'create web' now) were not visible
when you are gazing into room, thus making it easy to trap. Fixed.

- 'Info' command, as well as some others, are now available while sleeping.

- Player characters got aged 7x faster than they supposed to. Fixed now. As
game time is 60x faster than real time, characters now really become 1 year
more aged once per 6 real life days.

- Output of the 'worth' command is more informative now.

- 'wear all' command works better now - it doesn't skip items wearable on
certain body parts.

- Trasher mobs will not pick up everything on sight - as well as everyone
else, they will not be able to lift any more items than their carrying capacity
lets them.

- You can not junk anything of cost above 1 gold (as it isn't considered junk).

- Object removed from equipment always goes to the top of inventory now (this
is important to switch weapons, rings and alike stuff).

[Gray]

- From now you can rent mounts in stables using 'rent <mount keyword>' command.
The mount should be following you (i.e. you can't rent mounts which belong to
other players or are just moving freely). You receive a ticket which you can
use later to get your mount back, using a command 'unrent' (first ticket in
your inventory will be used - if any). It will cost you 1 gold, no matter of
mount type or renting time (money are taken automatically when you unrent your
mount). Just mounts can be rented (common mobs, even if charmed, can't).

[Gray]

Shop code in Lost Realms was completely rewritten. New shops have severe
differences from old ones:

- The main part: shops now save their stocks over reboots!

- Prices will be dynamic, depending on specific shopkeepers. If players sell
too much certain items, shopkeeper will lower price for these items; if nobody
sells something - price will gradually go up. Due to this feature price for the
same item (say, crystal headband) can be times higher in shops of the Good Side
than in orkish shops, and vice versa for, say, crown of bones. This feature
will be enabled when we grow sufficient playerbase, and shops grow some basic
stock.

- Stock of every shop is limited now. Even though some shops still produce
goods, they do not keep more than certain amount at once. If a shop offers
50 arrows, and you have bought them all, you have to wait for the next restock
to buy more.

- Shops start with huge amounts of money, so you can assume that shopkeepers
never run out of coins. Though, if you sell, for example, so many longswords
in some shop so it exceeds its upper buying limit, shopkeeper stops buying them
until other players or citizens of that place buy some of them. You are free to
carry the rest to some another shop, of course.

- Similar items are now grouped together. No more spam of 100 pieces of chain
mail of different condition (since repair tools costs almost nothing, shops
always sell brand new equipment).

- Apprise command doesn't display stats of objects anymore - now it merely
gives some vague information much like 'compare' does. Seek for a sorcerer
with corresponding spell if you want to know exact stats of an object!

Plus some lesser changes, as well as nuked ancient bugs (shopkeeper will not
sell anything while fighting, and so on).

As consequence, item renting in inns is gone. However, taxes are history as
well! So feel free to sell your loot in shops, bank any amounts of money and
use this money to buy stuff back once you happen to die and lose your eq.

Report any bugs to me directly, or post reports on forum. Also report any items
which should be sellable in your opinion, but are not accepted in any shops at
this moment. Just keep in mind: very few of the most advanced smith can handle
magic armours and weapons; and none of them agree to buy artifacts.

-- Gray

[Gray]

- Mount system has undergone severe changes. There are now more restrictions:
orcs and gnolls can not ride anything else but wargs (which do not let any
other races ride them, too), giants can ride just two types of mounts, trolls
can't ride anything, and almost every mount fears an undead rider.

[Gray]

Medkits do not provide instant hp boosts anymore - they increase hp regen
for a short time instead. Also, you now get affected by side effects right
after using medkit, and will not be able to use it again until these effects
expire.

[Gray]

- Giants and Trolls, being too clumsy and not very bright, have received some
restrictions in using armours. Giants can not wear plate metal, Trolls are
unable to even handle mail. On the other hand, both of these races have gotten
natural resistance to physical damage - a bit more for Trolls, a bit less for
Giants. This natural absorbtion is cumulative with light armour bonus.

- From now you always see allies differently than enemy races. For example,
a Human player will see a Kender player as -a Kender- rather than *a Kender*.