What Was New In 2020

12/2/2020 v1201
Celebrate the idea that you don’t fit in. Find your own fit. Stay unique. — Betsey Johnson (b. 1942)

• Season’s Beatings!
• Like poorly wrapped Bawkmas gifts, all changes to this update are secret.

11/4/2020 v1197
Heroism is accessible. Happiness is more difficult. — Albert Camus (1913–1960)

• All changes this update are either secret or too obvious to mention here. (But not both.)

10/7/2020 v1193
Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that. — Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

• Spooky new areas. We hope they’ll be a smashing success!
• Testing out some buffs to blood inferno. Big increase to overall power, as well as a buff to the ability to clear lower level junk.

9/2/2020 v1188
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. — Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)

• No significant changes this update, but the changes that were changed are significant.
• For reasons that remain unexplained, in mid-month our network-facing gerbils got moved to a new cage, which they found to be distinctly cramped, noisy, noisome, and altogether an uncongenial place to live. Several days of unpleasantness and fog ensued, until we could move them back into nicer digs. We apologize for the deterioration of service; we’re awarding some free ranks to everyone to make up for it.

8/5/2020 v1184
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. — Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

• Everything this update is secret. Shhh!

7/1/2020 v1179
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. — Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)

• Increase darkite damage to more exactly match darkus without balance components.
• Tweaked some monsters (general summary of changes: more XP, sometimes more health)
• Tweaks to pets:
  • The “come” command now makes the pet follow until they receive another command.
  • Slightly decreased pet slaughter rates.
  • You can now /pull /critter to pull a pet (size of pets also increased to make pulling more reliable)

6/3/2020 v1175
Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms. — George Eliot (1819–1880)

• Major updates and changes to healer pets. Some changes in pet management and collecting, and some bug fixes and quality of life improvements.
  • This is a major overhaul in how things worked behind the scenes. We tested as well as we could, but please report any bugs or issues.
  • Rescuing a pet will no longer replace your “secondary” pet. You can rescue as many pets as you want now, without fear of overwriting pets.
  • There were major changes to allow for this behavior; you’ll need to explore and experiment to figure it out.
  • The overall summary is that there are still limits on the number of pets you can have at once; and now it’s much more explicit when you choose to “tame” a pet: it’s no longer automatically done when you heal the pet. Instead, healing a pet adds it to your “collection” of possible pets.
  • This collection is limitless, although you can’t have duplicates.
  • It should now be nearly impossible to accidentally replace your pets.
  • Limit on number of simultaneous pets can now be increased beyond 2. (But you’ve got to earn it!)
  • Fixed bug which was preventing most rescuable pets from showing up in the world.
  • Added a bunch of new pets.
  • Pets can now get even stronger than before.
• Chests on Gho-wei were inadvertently awarding total coin payout to everyone, instead of splitting it amongst nearby players. We've kept the non-splitting behavior, but lowered the payout to account for it.
• Do you believe in magic? If you search for it, then it may lead you somewhere.

5/6/2020 v1171
The greatest compassion is the prevention of human suffering through patience, alertness, courage and kindness. — Amit Ray (b. 1960)

• We hope that everyone continues to remain safe and healthy during the new normal.
• It’s so very good to see old faces again. And by “faces” we mean “pixels”. Welcome back to Puddleby, returning players!
• Fixed bug where monsters that spawned “friends” on spawn would spawn additional “friends” when they were befriended and the befriend ended. ’Nuff said-ed?
• Extended the amount of ranks the “newbie” experience booster will boost to. It previously boosted up to 2000 ranks; it now boosts to 3000. This also tweaks the amount of boost at different ranks (for example, it used to switch from a 9x bonus to a 8x bonus at 200 ranks; it now does this at 400 ranks). Any suggestions for further improvements to the booster, or newbie experience in general, are very welcome.
• Fix a bug affecting certain capped skills after untraining. For some trainers, it would not let you get back up to the cap after untraining due to fractional rank gain (for example, if you had 9.3, and the cap was 10, it wouldn’t let you train even once, because that would go to 10.3). Now in this case it will let you train just up to the cap (so from 9.3 to 10, for example).
• Reduce spirit cost of some mystic abilities.
• Champion earth mineral bug fix:
  • Previous behavior: When equipping a pauldron and a left-hand earth mineral, it would apply the full bonus for each item, instead of just the pauldron. So for example, with an atkite pauldron and left-hand atkite equipped, it would give 2x atkite instead of 1x. Or one atkite pauldron and one balthite would give 1x atkite and 1x balthite.
  • Why this is a problem: 2x balthite bonus gives significantly more ranks than 1x balthus. (And same for dethite). This makes channel master better, by a very large percentage, than those base trainers. (And similar but lesser bonus for a mix of balthite/dethite and atkite/darkite)
  • New behavior: Changed behavior when both ‘ites are equipped to give 1/2 full bonus of each ’ite. So for example, with an atkite pauldron and left-hand atkite equipped, it would give 1x atkite. Or one atkite pauldron and one balthite left-hand item would give .5 atkite and .5 balthite. When boosting, it will apply the pauldron full boost, and continue to apply the left hand ‘ite unboosted effect, so the last example, while boosted, will apply 1.5x atkite and .5 balthite.
  • Additionally: Since this bug has been around for a very long time (since pauldrons were introduced), and since people have likely trained to optimize for it, we’ve also tweaked the amount of attack, balance, etc. that ’ites give to be more generous. In particular:
    • Atkite: Used to give a bit more than half of what a “pure accuracy” (Atkus without balance components) trainer would give. It now gives exactly as much as a pure accuracy trainer would give.
    • Balthite: Used to give a little bit less balance than what Balthus gave. Now gives exactly what Balthus gives.
    • Dethite: Used to give a little bit less defense than what Dethus gave. Now gives exactly what Dethus gives.
    • Darkite: Used to give a bit more than half of what a “pure damage” (Darkus without balance components) trainer would give. Now gives exactly what a “pure damage” Darkus would give.
  • The result: This is a significant nerf for those using double pauldron and ‘ites with balthite and dethite. It’s closer to neutral (but still a nerf) for those using it for double atkite/darkite. For those not using double ‘ites, this is a buff all around (a significant one for accuracy/damage, minor for balance/defense). This makes channel master still a very good trainer, better in most cases than training straight balance/defense/accuracy/damage, but not to the degree it was before the change. The hope is that even if people have adjusted their training to channel master vs. base trainers, that investment is still a very good investment (if not, please let us know what you’d have rather trained; the intent is not to “punish” anyone, given this bug has been around for so long).
• Development continues behind the scenes on new areas.
• One more secret change; we can’t spoil everything.

4/1/2020 v1166
He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything. — Arabian Proverb

• We hope that everyone remains safe and healthy during this pandemic crisis.
• Puddleby supports social distancing!

3/4/2020 v1162
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society. — Mark Twain (1835–1910)

• No significant changes this update.

2/5/2020 v1158
The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great at whatever they want to do. — Kobe Bryant (1978–2020)

• Some behind-the-scene developments in the works.

1/3/2020 v1153
Would you like to know your future? If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator. So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence — a surprise. — Vera Nazarian (b. 1966)

• Happy (belated; OOC) New Year everyone!