Greetings,

A major overhaul to the targeted magic messaging system will be rolled into Prime in a few minutes. During the transition, which should only take a minute or so, you may notice strange damage messaging -- or none at all. The overhaul specifically applies to the following spells: Aether Lance, Aether Lash, Crystal Spike, Devitalize, Dinazen Olkar, Divine Radiance, Eagle's Cry, Fire Ball, Fire Shard, Fist of Faenella, Fist of Stone, Frost Scythe, Gar Zeng, Harm Evil, Unicorn's Horn, Hand of Tenemlor, Ice Patch, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Mark of Arhat, Partial Displacement, Starlight Sphere, and Strange Arrow.

The vast majority of this is a behind-the-scenes change to how damage messaging is stored and used, and will allow for greater flexibility as well as ease the writing burden. Even so, nearly every spell had longstanding typos and grammar issues that were fixed during this update, so you're bound to notice a few differences.

In addition, the TARGET verb has been updated significantly. You can now target custom critter body parts using those custom names, and a bug in targeting injured areas was fixed. The improvement you are most likely to notice, however, is that you can now target hidden enemies if you have the spot effect on them.

Perceptive players may also notice the Ice Patch spell in the list. This has been converted from a SvA disabling spell into a direct-damage TM spell (2nd tier) for the Water book, with its own damage messaging.

Although the release has gone smoothly in Platinum for the past week, I doubt that every message from every spell listed above has been examined. If any of the messaging for those spells seems odd or off, please bring it to my attention by using BUG.

Everyone on the GM team deserves credit for this update -- from the SGMs who approved my crazy idea to rewrite each spell's messaging to those who actually QCd the massive number of entries. Many other GMs also contributed to the project in huge ways. It has been a long road, but a worthwhile one.

Next week, provided no serious problems occur, the update will be pushed into The Fallen.


- GM Wythor

What goes up
is futile --
unless it goes out

>>Perceptive players may also notice the Ice Patch spell in the list. This has been converted from a SvA disabling spell into a direct-damage TM spell (2nd tier) for the Water book, with its own damage messaging.

Not really too happy to see this change. After a small amount of time testing real quick, casting IP on something, they fall break something and now can stand back up in less then 1 second(unless a major part was hit giving its own stun). If I wanted just another damage only spell I would have choose a different spell. Now the reasons I got this spell are useless and I should have went with Thunder clap, but atlas i went for a single target stun-ish spell with some damage instead of a multi critter stun spell with no damage. I can understand adding it to need TM to some degree but this is dumb, this spell already has its limits and taking away a main part of why i got this spell kinda sucks. I'll have to play around more, but my guess is I may have goto throne now to forget the spell. Hopefully I don't wanna forget another spell within 6 months..

Other then that, nice work. I like the targeting hidden. Now we just need to be able to steal from someone who we have the spot effect on now.

I've played around a bit with the new IP and I'm sorry but I'm fairly disapointed. We already have so many TM spells that adding another one, that is fairly similar to a point to PW in terms of it knocking the target down and damaging it, though PW does the damage a couple seconds later, seems to me to be a redundant action. With the old IP, I could knock down bristlies with about 20 mana in six seconds, now it's taking 25 mana with the full 9-12 second target time; three seconds is an even longer time in PvP situations, where you have to rely on snapcasts that'll work. If it weren't for it's pre-req for veil of ice, I would've gone to throne to forget it already, but VoI has saved my life and others' too many times to lose it, though I'm still considering it. I suppose we could call IP's replacement Anther's Call, since it is the new disabling spell for warmies, which isn't half as good as a paladin's halt or a ranger's HB in terms of duration or immobilization.

In the past I tended to use IP to keep multiples from engaging myself or someone else who is already swarmed so it would keep possible learning MO while beating back the mob. It was also very useful in backtraining weapons as I could knock the critter down and immobilize it long enough to use one of my lesser weapons and kill it in a decent time instead of taking forever. Now it applies to neither.

With the advent of IP becoming a TM spell, we now have 17 TM spells, 5 actually useful disabling spells (vert,TC,SD,tremor,tingle) with the rest being buff spells or sort of useful disabling/get out of trouble spells. Honestly, I think we had enough TM spells to begin with to have quite a variety in how we kill our targets, and too few actually potent disabling spells. The old IP was the cream of the crop in terms of both potency and utility, now it's just another TM spell with a small perk.

PVP wise, it was our equivalent to halt, mind blast, and HB; as well as barb roars. Now we're back to square one against those spells, which are able to be cast quickly and still be rather highly effective.

As far as the damage that went with the old IP, I had it down to science in how much mana I needed for a sprain, a break, a wind-knocked out of, or a cracked skull or broken back. Occasionally I might make somethin' break it's neck, but not often.

We lost an excellent disabling spell for just another of 17 TM spells. Thanks.

*And any guild that complains that IP was overpowered, ask a paladin to snap halt and watch it last about fifteen seconds or even more if he's higher than you. Or a moonie's mind blast last nearly a minute. Or a cleric half my size stun-locking me for ten minutes without running out of mana. I don't think IP was overpowered at all. It was only OP because most warmies had DB spewing from thier lips the second ya hit the ground.

>>Honestly, I think we had enough TM spells to begin with to have quite a variety in how we kill our targets, and too few actually potent disabling spells.

Why did you join the Warrior Mage Guild, again?

Disablers are never going to be your strong suit. Damaging, death-dealing spells, which all must be targeted to a degree, are your strong suit.

>>With the advent of IP becoming a TM spell, we now have 17 TM spells

This may be enough for a mage who wants to learn a bit from every element, but certainly not enough for those who will dedicate themselves to a single element. No, not nearly enough.

>>5 actually useful disabling spells (vert,TC,SD,tremor,tingle)

I noticed you didn't include Anther's Call in that group. Since you mentioned Halt in your footnote, I found it interesting that 'WM Halt' didn't even make it into your top five.

>>PVP wise, it was our equivalent to halt, mind blast, and HB; as well as barb roars. Now we're back to square one against those spells, which are able to be cast quickly and still be rather highly effective.

I don't design spells with specific PvP niches in mind. That being said, WMs already have an excellent arsenal of spells at their disposal -- it's just a question of using them properly.

>>We lost an excellent disabling spell for just another of 17 TM spells. Thanks.

You're welcome to dispose of any unwanted spells in Throne City.

Bear this in mind: ultimately, I want to shoot for at least one targeted spell of each tier in each elemental book. That's at the very least 30 TM spells. We're barely halfway there. Certainly some of you will feel that this is excessive, but hey -- it's the bread and butter of the guild.

Will there be disablers in the future? Sure, but they aren't going to be snapping necks or breaking legs/backs. I won't rule out the possibility of a non-damaging Ice Patch-style spell in the future, but consider this: you've still got knockback, knockdown, stun, immobilization... a veritable toolbox. You've just got to make intelligent choices about what spells to learn and when to use each spell. Spells are what they are and, in general, are going to be less effective than in years past. They'll have narrower focus. To accomplish everything that an 'old' spell did, you may have to employ two or three 'new era' spells.

You're free to feel the way you do, and I'm free to feel the way I do. I have a passion for the Warrior Mage Guild. I wouldn't be approaching the end of my fourth year as its nominal guru if I didn't. I want everything we have to be as fun and as potent as it can be. I also, however, must work within the guidelines set by my bosses -- and my desire to make the entire game as enjoyable as it can be, for every player. In the end, you really shouldn't let changes one little spell overshadow all the great things that this game continues to offer.

That's just the opinion of a very tired GM, though. Take it as you will. ;)


- GM Wythor

What goes up
is futile --
unless it goes out

>>1) Disabling TM: Checks TM to hit and damage, but is long on disabling and short on damage.

This is something I've been curious about for years, myself. I know there's a (fairly) new rule that says deadly spells must be TM/have a TM component, but is there some other kind of (perhaps unwritten) rule that all TM spells must cause potentially deadly injury/can't simply disable, or can't simply have the disabling effect as the primary purpose? I'm pretty sure TM experience is given per damage dealt, but that seems like something that wouldn't be horrendously hard to modify.

---

Denstimar Dustyfoot
Idon Raider - www.idonraiders.com
"It's not about making money, it's about taking money; destroying the status quo because the status is not quo." - Dr. Horrible

DM's have commented in the past that a non-damaging TM spell would be interesting ... I doubt it would teach, though. Is there any existing teacher that gives exp based on how well you beat a skill contest?

Teaching, maybe?

>>Don't think so, because the Cleric spells DR and Halo both use TM but don't damage the living. Instead they cause balance hits or knock opponents back a range or two.

Ah yes, I forgot about those. From my all too brief recent stint as a cleric I never did get too much usefulness out of DR, and hadn't yet picked up Halo before I stopped. Nonetheless, I think there's a lot of potential there (TM disablers), particularly for WMs.

---

Denstimar Dustyfoot
Idon Raider - www.idonraiders.com
"It's not about making money, it's about taking money; destroying the status quo because the status is not quo." - Dr. Horrible

The main issue for me personally with IP being changed from a disabling SvA to a TM spell is that the replacement disabler, Anther's Call, is in a different book with a different set of pre-reqs. I haven't learned either tremor or FOS, which means I have to wait 9 circles until I can get ANC to replace IP (thats if it even is a like-for-like replacement, which I'm not sure as I didn't have much chance to mess around with it whilst it was on preview). And thats 9 circles minimum, assuming I don't want to learn any other spells in that time. I could of course unlearn some spells in Throne City, but as someone mentioned IP is a pre-req for VOI, and the time and cost involved in that makes it pretty much more trouble than its worth. This aspect of the change is kind of annoying, although I don't really have a problem with the changes to IP in itself.

~Asclepto

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines"