FoF Nr. 089

PLEASE NOTE: The Five on Friday archives are not updated with each patch. Please take older documents with a grain of salt, as they may be inaccurate.

December 21, 2007

Continuing the "year-end wrapup" theme, I spent the week updating pages in the Play Guide based on information dug up in the past year's Five on Fridays. A couple of caveats:

• I did not comprehensively fact-check and/or update every page below; I just added/corrected the info we had previously verified in FoFs.
• I didn't update most pages based on patch notes, although that's pretty high on my list. Some pages did get updated (for example, the Item Properties page has cap information based on the latest game changes, which were made after the Property Cap-related FoF questions) but it's the exception rather than the rule.
• Pages that don't exist didn't get updated. That sounds obvious, but it's actually an important distinction - for example, there's no page that discusses looting rules, so the updated FoF info about looting rules has no home at the moment. Given that I had way more to update than I had time to finish, I've shelved all new-page creation until after the holidays.
• Likewise, pages haven't been updated with KR or Mondain's Legacy info if they did not already have it - that will require more research time than I had this week.
• Note the "Updated" stamp on the bottom of the below pages: if that stamp isn't on a guide page, I make no assertions as to its accuracy. As near as I can tell, the cooking page hadn't been touched since '99 at the earliest, and gave instructions for how to cook food that brought back fond, if ancient, memories :)

In short, this is far from a comprehensive effort, but I hope that it's at least a start, and will lead to better documentation in the future.

Skills Pages

The general Skill page, with details about gaining skills Alchemy - added the info about its effect on the Enhance Potions property Arms Lore - completely rewritten with its new effects Begging - added info about its effect on Karma Cooking - brought into the modern age, added a note on food, hunger, and its effects on gameplay Detect Hidden - added a clarification on how to gain skill Magery - added the Fast Cast property cap info Taming - added swing speed info and clarified Pack Instinct effect Veterinary - added info on speed Lumberjacking - updated list of weapons subject to the LJ damage bonus Remove Traps, - added a clarification on how to gain skill Necromancy - Fixed Cursed Weapon formula and added info about Spell Resist and Blood Oath damage, added the Fast Cast property cap info Chivalry - added the Fast Cast property cap info Bushido - added Perfection info, added details for Lightning Strike, added the Fast Cast property cap info Ninjitsu - added changes to Animal Form and Death Strike, added the Fast Cast property cap info Spellweaving - clarified Thunderstorm effects, added the Fast Cast property cap info Power Scrolls - added more info on how they drop

Item Properties

Item properties chart - updated with info on caps, changes, etc for quite a few properties Base properties - added a link to the Arms Lore page in the Exceptional Item section Enhancing - added info about high skill affecting success chance Luck - added a few Qs and As

Champion Spawns

Champ Spawn types - clarified type/reward link (or lack thereof) Altar and Skulls - clarified need to kill lesser critters Rewards - link to Scrolls of Power page was bad, fixed it

Magery Spells

Second Circle - clarified Protection and its effect on Fast Cast Seventh Circle - added Chain Lightning/Meteor Swarm damage formulas

Combat and Equipment

Equipment - added durability info to Repair section Weapons - added Swing Speed formula to the footnotes. (I know the chart itself is out of date - on my list! But you can get the necessary info from the in-game tooltips to use that formula.) Dying - Added info about being looted by a monster Stamina and Health - Removed outdated info about food Special Moves - Added info about Tactics requirements, added cap info to Crushing Blow

Miscellaneous

Bulk Order Deeds - ported the BOD Book info from the original design page and added info about item counts --

Keep an eye out for Snowball Wars to begin on the Winterland shard - Draconi is putting the finishing touches on them. Next week is a company-wide holiday (with the exception of the poor Customer Service folks, who we chain to their desks) so there won't be a FoF next Friday. Have a great holiday week, be safe, and play lots of UO!

-- Jeremy