Version 1.0.8.7

Release notes for Shadowbane v1.0.8.7 which was launched on 7/23/2003

Major New Game Features

Performance Monitor

Shadowbane is introducing a new performance monitor utility to improve client playability in siege situations. The performance monitor will disable engine features in order to maintain a given frame rate. You can toggle the performance monitor on and off with the command "/perfmonitor on/off". You can see how well the performance monitor is performing by just typing "/perfmonitor."
You will be able to set the critical and ideal framerates with this new utility. For example you can set good frame rates and poor frame rates for your client and have this tool automatically regulate client features.
"/perfmonitor [critical] [ideal]"
Thus, setting "/perfmonitor 15 20" will turn engine features off if the frame rate goes below 15, and turn them back on if they go above 20.
The engine features that can be disabled include, among other things, lighting, shadows, particle effects, animations, and/or mesh elements (read: body parts, starting with hands and feet, which aren't very visible from a distance anyway). As the results above can easily be a little weird, you can set the weight that each possible engine feature will be chosen in your ArcanePref.cfg file. You also can modify the performance monitor (more crudely, to be sure), by running the sbconfig.exe that is in the Shadowbane root directory.
A great way to find the perfmon settings which are best for you is to take a recording of a crowded siege, and try running that recording with different perfmon settings.

The Refiner Hireling "Retraining"

We added the "Refiner", an NPC who can help you reclaim training points you have misspent.
You will be able to purchase Refiner deeds at an R5 steward, and place him in your city. The refiner hireling cannot be ranked up. However, malicious city owners can certainly set a profit margin on the refiner.
When using the Refiner, You can pay to remove points from skills or powers that you have previously invested. This only works for those skill points granted by class or discipline that you have spent points in.

• The first point will cost 100 gold to remove.
• The price will double every time you remove a point via the refiner.
• The price will cut in half every six hours, but will never go below 100.
• If after refining, you are wearing equipment which you lack the skill to wear, it will be placed in your inventory.
• You cannot remove a skill point which would make one of your skills or powers illegal (for example, reduce your sword below 80 if you have spent points in sword mastery).

Higher Level Hunting Grounds

We added some higher level hunting grounds to the world, including some rank 4 mobiles that many of you have felt was a long time in coming. We hope you enjoy them.

• Replaced Glen of Haukwen (Grobold Forest on Mainland) with higher level hunting.
• Added some higher level hunting areas to the desert as well (but not a full zone replacement).
• Both areas have some mobs that go up to level 48. Be warned, these hunting areas will likely be hotly contested.

New Sun Dancer Improvements

The Sun Dancer has been modified in the following ways:

• A new Sun Dancer-only weapon, the Khan'xir, may now be purchased from R7 sages. This requires 100% Unarmed skill and the Sun Dancer discipline.
• Added lore to the Sun Dancer trainers to talk about the Khan'xir.
• Sun Dancer powers now only work with the new Sun Dancer weapon.
• Sun Dancers are now granted ambidexterity.
• Granted Sun Dancers a self-only haste power, Strike of the Manticore.
• Granted Sun Dancers a single-target fire resistance buff, Embrace of the Phoenix.

Shadowbane Friends List Interface

Shadowbane now has a friends list capability so you can track the online and offline status of your favorite fellow adventurers.

• You can bring up the friends list from the main menu under "Character."
• You can invite someone to be on your friends list. Note: this is always mutual – if you are on their friends list, they are on yours. Thus, they must accept your friend's list invitation.
• Other players can see your online state from the friends list.
• You can set your friend's list status to be "Away" or "Busy," and they will see that as well.
• You are notified when a friend logs on, logs off or dies.
• Right-click or control-click on a name in the friend's list to either send a tell to him, or to remove him from the friends list.

Warlock Profession Improvements

We have made several improvements to the Warlock class.

• Parry and block get 10 extra trains each.
• Calm, Mindwipe, and Total Mindwipe are granted at GM.
• Danger Sense, Mind and Body One, and Free Thought can all stack with other class' buffs.
• Bewilder, Unleash Nightmare, Hypnotic Gaze, and Hypnotic Aura now max at 10 trains, with the same effect as they previously had at 40.
• Psychic Healing is now on a six second timer.
• Needs of the One no longer excludes one's group.
• Ignore the Old Order can now be cast on other players.
• Warlocks now have a class-specific set of medium armor, which is available on R7 smiths.
• Fighter Warlocks are now granted the staff skill at promotion.

New Minor Game Features

• Added the ability to junk multiple items at one time at your vendor.
• Group members will now show up as light blue on your minimap.
• Pets will show up as hot pink on your minimap.
• Hireling inventory can now be sorted alphabetically, by price, or by magic/non-magic.
• R2 and R3 sages will now start selling bundled scrolls and tomes of Recall, which have multiple charges.
• There is now means to exit the walls of King's Cross to the south.
• "/who " should bring up the who window as if you had put that person's name in the who filter.
• Added a "Restore Defaults" button to the Settings Screen.
• Added mouseover information to stamina bar.
• Added some new monster spawn/mini POIs to newbie island.
• Our client can now better render weapons with particle effects.
• There should now be item descriptions in the mouseovers of items in your Hireling's inventory.
• You can now turn off "mousepush" at the edge of the screen (this was done last patch, but there were some problems).
• You can now turn the tunnel off (we mean it this time!) A black screen will come up with the word "loading."
• You can disable the tunnel either by running sbconfig.exe, or setting DISABLETUNNEL= TRUE in your arcanepref.cfg file

Performance Enhancements

• Dragging a furniture deed in the furniture placement HUD should no longer crash the client.
• Eliminated a crash going into settings screen from character selection.
• Fixed a cause of "Contact Customer Support (2)" errors that resulted from using Leave World.
• Fixed a client crash in character selection.
• Fixed a client crash related to renaming city assets.
• Fixed some "failing to login" issues.
• Made some changes which should improve server startup time and memory usage.
• Ruined Buildings should now decay over time. This will improve both client and server performance.
• We have changed our meshcache implementation, and as such some people running on cards which didn't handle meshcache well previously should try running it again.
• You can toggle your meshcache on and off in sbconfig.exe, or by changing the USEMESHCACHE= setting in your arcanepref.cfg file.

Game Balance Adjustments

• "Feint" will now apply a negative modifier to the user's power damage (though melee damage will remain as before).
• "Hunt Wyrm" is now granted at GM, and cannot be trained.
• Bards should now be able to use "Throwing Mastery" rune.
• Warriors now have throwing weapon powers.
• Barbarians can no longer apply the "Axe Mastery" rune (since they get this power automatically, it's just a waste of a rune slot).
• Bow and crossbow mastery powers granted by the Archery rune now have a second prerequisite in the lesser rune, to prevent useless crossbow powers showing up to bow users and vice versa.
• Items with holy resistance prefixes should start dropping and appearing on vendors.
• Lengthened timer of Prelate AoE Censure spell.
• Level 1-4 mobiles now drop slightly more gold.
• Mage stances will now slow casters instead of just rooting them.
• Mobiles should drop and wield a wider variety of equipment throughout the world.
• Scouts will now get tracking at level 15 instead of 30.
• Scouts will now have access to the traveller rune.
• Stunned monsters and players can no longer dodge, parry or block.
• The description for "Infuse with Power" now points out that it only affects jewelry.
• The descriptions of weapon-mastery granting runes now pointedly point out that they don't necessarily grant the weapon powers as well.
• You can no longer manage or repair buildings with gold while in safe mode.
• "Sign of Sorthoth" can now be dispelled by the wizard counterspell.

Major Bug Fixes

• Added time in numbers to hireling promotion/item creation so users have a visible time of when promotion or create is to complete (instead of just a status bar).
• Basilisks and other baddies should cease to occasionally spawn in the middle of Khar th'Sekt.
• Clicking the promote option on a trainer now brings up a dialog box that asks "Are you sure you want to promote to (class)? yes/no."
• Feature Characters with monster cohorts should no longer be attacked by their pets and minions.
• Fixed "cancel" button in "Create New Support Offer?" dialog.
• Fixed a rare bug which would result in player petitions showing up to the CSRs as unreadable garbage.
• Fixed a sound bug that was causing some zones to cut out sounds completely.
• Fixed context menu so that items in your inventory always give the same (and correct) context menu options.
• Fixed error message which occurs if you plant a guild seed without being a guild officer.
• Fixed some issues with Nation filter in /who list.
• If you close the Pricing window with the "X," you will now be able to reopen it without restarting your client.
• Infinite spellcasting animations should be a thing of the past.
• Items in the Item Production dialog once again display their prefixes or suffixes.
• Non-human player-owned vendors should now always have names that are appropriate for their gender.
• Player owned shieldsmiths can now make magic metal shields.
• Resurrection spells work again.
• The Tree of Life management HUD will now close if you get too far from your Tree of Life.
• Use of pulsing powers should no longer print out messages upon each pulse, which should dramatically reduce spam for crusaders, bards and other chant-casters.
• Weapon powers for ranged weapons once again display strings showing their effect.

Minor Bug fixes

• "Trip" now prints out messages to the chat/system window.
• Aracoix no longer have an omnipresent wing symbol in their Effects HUD.
• Books given out in events now have tooltips, explaining that you can click on them to read them.
• Cleaned up some formatting errors in tutorial tips.
• Fixed a bug causing slight audio clipping mid-cast for spellcasting female mages.
• Fixed a bug where your health bar would show some red in it if your health was below 0.
• Fixed a minor typo on weapon mouseovers (adding a space between the weapon speed and the parenthesis).
• Fixed a typo in the runestone application window.
• Fixed bad string which appears when Assassin's Poison Blade power is used.
• Fixed bug preventing mouseovers for "Master of Arms", "Knife Fighter" and "Brawler" from showing up.
• Fixed some bad building icons.
• Fixed some bad icons for some items.
• Fixed some buildings placed with bad collision shapes.
• Fixed some buildings with bad stairs in Grimsward.
• Fixed some hovering buildings throughout the world.
• Fixed some minor audio problems associated with NPC speech.
• Fixed some misplaced trees throughout the world, including some which float and some which were in the ocean.
• Fixed some mobiles who didn't have their bring-a-friend settings set correctly.
• Fixed some of the art for tunics as worn on female Aelfborn characters.
• Fixed the 3D representation of the Lightning Spear.
• Fixed the block skill description.
• Fixed the flickering dirt skirt on the Elven Tower.
• Fixed typo in "/stuck" message/error box.
• Fixed wall that doesn't fade correctly in Temple of the Cleansing Flame.
• Fixed World Map display error which resulted in long nation or city names exceeding the length of their display window.
• Giant Boars and Ancient Black Drakes should now be more appropriate sizes.
• Irekei innkeepers should now display their titles correctly.
• Items in the Item Production HUD will now always display the correct icon.
• Long guild mottos should no longer be cut off in the "Guild Info" HUD.
• Made mouseover information on XP bar more descriptive.
• Made the quest for the Sun Dancer rune more clear in the Sun Dancer trainer's lore.
• Orc buildings should start displaying all of their furnishings.
• Ranged weapons should now always use the correct hit/miss sounds.
• Removed a redundant line in spell power descriptions.
• Rotating your character with the left or right arrow while in a recording will no longer crash the client.
• The /stuck dialog box now more fully explains the 10 second rule.
• The Diagnostics HUD will now remember its position when closed and re-opened.
• The Huntress trainer in King's Cross has waxed her unsightly beard and misplaced eyebrows..
• The last item of the Item Production HUD will no longer be cut off.
• The Petition HUD has been updated with new text, pointing out that the "Bug" and "Feedback" buttons do not result in CSR contact (if a player requires CSR contact, he or she should use one of the other buttons). Will not be seen in custom skins.
• The Swear Fealty HUD should no longer have text clip on the borders of the window.
• The various wereforms should now be spelled consistently without the hyphen throughout the world.
• Trees should no longer be sprouting within the walls of King's Cross.
• Twin Axes should no longer create spurious "Blade Trail could not be created." messages.
• Updated Bloodfire's description to point out that it now does stamina as well as health damage.
• You can now climb the Lizardman pyramid in Swampstone city.
• You can now use the sliders to change a channel color to be 100% in R,G, or B.
• You should now be able to fully traverse the tops of the walls in Knightsbridge.
• Barbarian Rage should be working correctly.

Previous Patch: Version 1.0.7.7 Next Patch: Version 1.0.9.9