Server Downtime and Patch Notes 7/2 (Build 82)

All servers will be coming down at 2:00PM CDT today to apply Build 82. The expected downtime is two hours.

Here are the patch notes:

Legal Mumbo Jumbo
An updated EULA (User Agreement) has been put in this build.

Voice Chat
Voice chat has been added to Dungeon Runners with this build. Voice chat allows players in the same group to talk with each other. Free players cannot speak over voice chat.

Three new options have been added to the options screen under “Sound” related to Voice Chat. These options are “Voice Chat Volume”, “Trigger Level” and “Voice Chat Mode”. Voice chat volume controls the volume level of received voice chat messages. Trigger level controls the sensitivity of the microphone. Voice chat mode allows the user to disable the automatic detection of voice chat and defer to a button press to send messages. The default key for sending voice chat messages is "F".

Various icons are displayed to the right of a player’s name to indicate their current voice chat status.

• A solid white speaker means that the player can send voice chat messages.
• A yellow speaker means that the player is currently sending a voice chat message.
• A white speaker with a circle-slash over top of it means that you have that player muted.
• An outline of a white speaker means that the player cannot send voice chat messages.
• A solid red speaker with a "?" to the right means that the player is disconnected from the voice chat service.

Difficulty Controls
We've added a difficulty setting to the game. Simply look under the "General" page of the options screen to change your difficulty setting.

• Normal - No change.
• Formidable - +50% monster health, +20% monster damage, +50% loot drops
• Extreme - +100% monster health, +40% monster damage, +100% loot drops
• Insane! - +150% monster health, +80% monster damage, +150% loot drops

Monster difficulty is set by the leader of your group. Type "/difficulty" to see the currently active difficulty setting of your group.

Video Card Auto Detect
Our new video card auto detect system has been added back in to this build. This system will help configure Dungeon Runners for good performance and visual quality on a wide range of systems. This auto-detect automatically runs the first time the game is run and may be run manually from the “Graphics” section of the options interface.

Invite System Rework
The invite system has been given an overhaul to help deal with some annoying situations that could occur if someone wanted to be nasty.

• We’ve added a new option toggle to the right-click menu. This option allows the user to control what players can invite them to join a group. By default, this option is set to show invites only from folks on your friends list. The user can choose to allow invites from any player.
• Lots of chat-window feedback has been added for the different happenings when using the invite system. Each invite-related action and result should have proper feedback now.
• Players may no longer be invited while they are in a group.
• Players may no longer be invited while they are looking at an invitation.
• Admin users who are “busy” may no longer be invited to a group.

Chat Window Enhancements
The text chat window has been updated to provide a better experience for the users.

• The text chat window may be resized. Simply look for the widget along the right side of the chat window and drag it to resize the window.
• The size of the chat window font can be adjusted under the “General” section of the options interface. The default is currently "7" and will be changed to "3" on the next release.
• The minimum opacity of the chat window can be adjusted under the “General” section of the options interface.
• A new “auto-fade” system has been added to the chat window. If the user brings their mouse cursor to rest on the chat window for a moment, the chat window will darken to help make the contained text more readable. Moving the mouse off of the chat window will cause it to fade out to the minimum opacity setting. Typing a chat message causes the window to darken immediately.
• The scroll wheel will scroll back in the chat window if used while the mouse cursor is over the chat window.

UI Improvements
Several improvements were made to the controls and general UI.

• The annoying bug that caused item tooltips to flicker and act crazy in some cases has been fixed.
• The cursor should now display a finger when over all UI elements. This resolves the bug that caused the cursor to remain as a talk bubble or other annoying image when over interfaces.
• Item tooltips are now better-placed in inventory screens, trying hard to never overlap the item that sourced the tooltip.
• Item tooltips are now able to be clicked-through if the need arises.
• The mini-map zoom setting is now defaulted to the smallest zoom.
• You can now activate and select items / monsters from a greater distance.
• You can now use WASD movement while targeting a skill.
• You can now use point-and-click movement while using a targeted skill.
• You can now use point-and-click movement while chatting.
• Bugs that cause the player to get stuck moving when changing UI states should be resolved.
• While using mouse-look, you can no longer use position-targeted skills at the same time.
• While using mouse look, the player can move forward by pressing the left mouse button.
• Your character's health and mana can be shown simply by moving your mouse cursor over the nameplate.

Quest Additions
Approximately 90 new quests have been added to the game.

Skill Additions
We’ve added five new passive resistance skills. These skills enhance one resistance at the detriment of other resistances. These resistance skills are inventively called: Poison Ward, Shadow Ward, Fire Ward, Ice Ward and Divine Ward.

We’ve added a new aggro-management skill called “Offensive Gesture”. Use this skill in group situations to draw monster attention to yourself. And, yes, the avatar does a rather comical offensive gesture that the player won’t be able to make out. We cried with laughter when we saw this in the game.

Armor Additions
Two brand new armor sets have been added to the game. Mage cloth and some sweet new padded armor, complete with a turban!

Three new armor color variants have been added to the game. A new red chain armor piece, a full black plate armor set and a full amethyst crystal armor set have been added.

Weapon Additions
Several new weapons have been added to the game. Most notable of these are the new mythic electric guitars – two-handed axes! They rock!

Server Stability Changes
We believe we’ve found the culprit behind the mysterious server exits that have been happening on the live server. We’ve implemented a fix for this…

We’ve added a new zone server crash interception system. This system will isolate a crashing zone from the rest of the server, allowing it to continue running without interruption. Those players inside of a crashing zone will be disconnected from the server.

We’ve added improved crash detection for heap-corruption situations on the server.

Vendor Changes
Vendors in Townston no longer sell only blues and greens. They should always generate wonderful yellow and occasional purple items. The cost of items bought from these vendors has been increased substantially. Each vendor has a new tab called "Scrap Heap" where free players can buy blues and greens.

King’s coin vendors are now in most dungeons. They appear 25% of the time on level 4 and 7. Each may have different rewards for turn-in.

Environment Changes
New voiceovers have been added to many NPCs in Townston. Changed NPCs include: Tilles the Sellout, the Commander and the Lieutenant.

Sam’s dungeon wholesale NPCs have received new voiceovers.

Encounter tables have been reworked for dungeons 8 and 9.

The large cave tile-sets have been adjusted for better playability.

The Rotgut boss fight has received some new monsters.

More permutations have been added to all entrance and exit tiles for all dungeons. This should make for more variance in the dungeon generation as well as reduce the chance for dungeon generation failure.

Bug Fixes and Balance Changes
It seems that a health modifier property for monsters wasn't working as intended. This has been fixed. Ranged monsters should now have less health than melee.

The "Unnerving Shout" skill has been adjusted. The attack speed debuff has been reduced to 5% per rank, down from 15%. The maximum attack speed reduction is now 25% instead of 75%.

A new mechanic has been added to the game -- Monster Frustration. When a monster is unable to make reasonable progress attacking a player it will become frustrated. A frustrated monster will happily stand on top of other monsters to reach its target, causing a bum rush effect vs. players that hide in restricted spaces to mitigate combat damage.

Monster tracking of the player during combat is much more responsive now.

Player skills that target objects will track moving objects more reliably now.

The aggro calculation has been adjusted to give more weight to distance between the monsters and players.

Players must now be within a reasonable distance of a dying monster to get experience for the kill.

Players no longer receive an experience bonus for fighting monsters above their level. Monsters killed above the player's level will be treated as being the player's level.