Wyvern News Archives

First, we're pleased to announce quite a few changes to guild stats. The changes, at the moment, are as follows:

• Mages: We removed the negatives for melee, since the skill no longer exists, and replaced it with negatives in close-combat weapon related skills, aside from staves.
• Archers: Again, we removed the negatives for melee and this time replaced it with negatives in all of the current close-combat weapon related skills. We also replaced the bonuses for forestry with find weakness, to make the life of an archer a little easier. However, if you're an archer and you now find yourself with more than 20 points, in find weakness, you should untrain your excess skills as they stop doing you any good after 20.
• Paladins: Instead of getting just a fixed number of bonuses in life upon joining the guild, Paladins now also get a point in life every other level. Which means that if you're a level 10 Paladin, you will now have +10 life as opposed to just +5, as was the case before.

We also changed the guild section of the player manual to reflect these changes and will continue to do so if you make any further changes based on observation and feedback following these current tweaks.

Secondly, we made some adjustments to arrows to correct a number of quirks that players have had to live with for some time now. As a result, you will find that arrows (and bolts) that are fired point blank at monsters will properly stack when picked up, where as they didn't before. You will also find that enemies standing on the bases of trees will no longer be protected from arrow fire!

Thirdly, items of all kinds will no longer stack if their damage and durability are set at different amounts. So, as always, we recommend you keep some sort of container handy.

Fourthly, teleport and blink will no longer work unless you have at least 1 point trained in spirit. Spirit also has an effect on the number of times you can cast teleport in succession before needing to take a breath and catch your bearings from all that teleporting (blink has no such limit). There is, however, no initial delay. Meaning, you will be able to cast the first teleport the same as you always have, but you may find that you need to wait a bit before casting the second or third.

Thanks to bug reports from loyal testers, not unlike yourself, it has come to our attention that gems could not be repaired. Which has recently become an issue when we started fixing a bug that resulted in items auto repairing themselves upon logout. As such, we have contacted a jeweler and asked that he make some gem repair tables for players to use. Fortunately, he was able to come through in a pinch and so you will now find gem repair tables on the top floor of the New Verden bank. Please be sure to let us know if you find any more items which cannot be repaired on an anvil, the magic repair stations in auction houses, or the new gem repair tables.

In other exciting news, we've once again adjusted invisibility potions and as a result you will now find that they last a bit longer. You'll also find that we updated the graphics of another of our ancient monsters with some Arisu designed images. See if you can spot which monster got the makeover next time you go exploring!

Wyvern's faithful scrolls of resurrection have long gotten a lot of attention and, for a simple scroll, that can be very tiresome. So, sadly, they decided to go off into semi-retirement by becoming artifacts. Now they can lay about in the lairs of terrifying monsters while sipping tea and watching adventurers die by the hundreds trying to get to them. They even received a new rank to go with their change in status and will from this day forward be known as scrolls of major resurrection!

But, do not fear, for they have found a replacement for you all in the form of their little sibling, the scroll of minor resurrection. You will be able to find scrolls of minor resurrection in all the same places you used to find the scroll of resurrection. In fact, if you had an a scroll of resurrection in your inventory before today, you will find that the scroll of minor resurrection has happily taken its place. They won't restore as much exp as their predecessors did and they're not any cheaper, but they're still a bargain if you're someone who continues to not see the wisdom in training spirit traveling.

In other news, we're continuing to make adjustments to the prices of scrolls and potions as needed. For example, today you might have noticed a slight increase in the value of resist scrolls. Keep an eye out for further adjustments and, to follow up on yesterday's news post, continue to keep an eye out for us fixing auto repair items. We already fixed of a couple of them, which includes the unicorn horn, but we still have more to get to.

Wyvern's wizards have been especially busy of late, making new artwork, fixing bugs, and baking pie. Well, maybe not baking pie, but we are pleased to announce some wonderful new artwork and exciting bug fixes that have been released recently or are on the horizon!

When it comes to art, our resident art wizard, Arisu, has been hard at work. This time introducing a brand new set of eight amulet images to replace the clunky old red one that has served us well for so many years. She's also designed custom images for Human axeman that are just as spiffy looking as those Human caveman!

When it comes to bugs, we've continued our efforts to go through and fix those longstanding ones we all dislike so much. Fixes of note are as follows:

• An especially nasty bug, that resulted in players being overkilled by various foes, is no more! We've had this one in our sights for some time and are glad to see it go at long last.
• We've fixed various monster inventories that were preventing players from looting items from corpses if someone else had done so earlier in the reboot. Famous examples included the boss of the Alaria Gauntlet and 'something' in the Demon Hordes quest. We still have a few more to go through, but we should have them all fixed by next week!
• Cloaks of invisibility now work properly, so you should no longer find that you sometimes stay invisible when removing one. On a related, but non-bug fix note, we've made an adjustment to potions of invisibility so they no longer last the entire reboot. However, we have reduced their cost appropriately so that you won't have to pay as much for them as you did in the past.
• Magic repair stations now repair potions.

When it comes to what's next, new artwork is sure to be on the horizon. But also, as of tomorrow we are going to start fixing items that auto repair themselves when you logout as a result of a bug. This means you will have to repair things like unicorn horns and the sword of Noir, among others. We want you to be aware of this ahead of time so that you won't be careless with items you never had to worry about before. You should also be on the lookout for any items which cannot be repaired by an anvil or magic repair station and if you find any, please bug report them.

Today's adjustments and fixes include:

• Resist spells are now castable on other players only if they are grouped with you. This stops the abuse of resists being cast on low levels outside the grouping level limit, plus stops the abuse of PK casting/dispelling resists. The resists that have been updated are: Bravery, Regeneration, Resist Cold, Resist Curse, Resist Fire, Resist Magic, Resist Paralysis, Resist Petrify, and Resist Shock. Free Action is in the works , so be sure to not abuse that in the mean time.
• The old "relog and you aren't encumbered anymore" bug is fixed. So be careful! You might relog and not be able to move.
• For you "old timers", you will remember the old monster-only spell Pig Storm. It stopped working some time back, much to our dismay! But, it is BACK! So if you find yourself speaking pig latin you will know why!
• Speaking of pig latin, all speech filters, including guild filters, now work in the main SHOUT channel. If you wish to not use them, as always, use OOC.

Rememeber: Use the bug command to let us know of anything unusual and idea command for suggestions!

As promised when these heal changes began, we are watching carefully for anything that needs adjusted and fixed.

• Today we changed the value of training in the Life skill for healing. Instead of each Life skill reducing the healing timer by 1 second it now reduces it by 2 seconds, so you will need less life to get the timer down to the minimum of 5 seconds.
• When healing others you no longer have to be or stay next to the target. You do have to stay in the same map for the heal to be successful.
• You can no longer cast on any monsters except your own summons.

Continue to keep us updated with more ideas and bug reports, so we can continue to make this an easy transition for you!

Last year we announced an unpopular nerf to healing spells with the insinuation that follow up changes were likely. After much consideration and some brainstorming, we have decided to not only follow up on it, but revamp our previous efforts to help balance healing. Now the level limits are gone, allowing you to cast or make use of any healing spell at any level, but with some restrictions. Some of the details of these restrictions are as follows:

• Heal no longer fully heals you. It is, however, still superior to major healing.
• There is now a delay before you can cast a healing spell. When you try to cast one, you will receive a message informing you that you have begun the process. At which point, you will have to wait while your character goes through the motions of reciting the incantations and whatnot before you receive a second message informing that you've been healed. The length of the delay is directly impacted by your proficiency in the life skill. At lower levels, the delay may seem like a significantly long one but, at higher levels, you will notice the time pass much more quickly.
• You will no longer be able to cast healing spells while in combat. If you try, you will lose your concentration and the spell will fail. This applies only to situations where you are doing damage to your enemy, not in situations where it is exclusively doing damage to you. However, since combat is automatic at close range and you never know when some monster will come running up to you, it is recommended you find a safe place to hide out before attempting to heal.
• While you cannot cast healing spells in combat, you can still use some items, such as potions and scrolls. However, they too, have a delay and there is no way to speed it up like you can with their spell counterparts. So, if you try to stay in combat while you wait for that potion of healing to mend your wounds, you may find that you are dead before you are healed by it.

Of course, we realize that some of you may find these changes to be a bit dramatic, but keep in mind that our goal is to prevent races and classes that wouldn't be healers in a million years, from dabbling in healing magic while also specializing in skills that make them nearly unstoppable powerhouses. We also want to restore a lot of the excitement in playing the game that was lost when combat tactics were thrown aside in favor of standing next to a monster and jamming your heal alias until the monster died. You should have to run away, dodge spells, make use of wands, rods, potions, and even switch between weapons and armors often. For example, there's nothing like finding a small alcove to hide in, so you can heal, while your heart races as you wonder if a monster is going to find you before your spell takes effect or not.

That's how the game was designed to be played, but along the way unresolved bugs, abuses, and, yes, even mistakes on our part, caused gameplay to change drastically. So, this and other updates will attempt to restore some that early vision for the game. But it's a process and we need your help. Our overall goal is to make the game challenging, but fun. However, it's just as bad if it's too challenging as it has been when it's too easy. So we need to you to keep testing the game and letting us know what you think. If you find certain monsters to be too hard now, let us know. If you have comments about the current healing system that are productive and might help lead to changes that balance it, let us know.

We very much want to do everything in our power to make this as easy a transition as possible for you all. So, if we find that certain monsters need to be weakened or some armor needs to be made more powerful here and there, we will do so. We're also going to do more to support a healing class that can work with non-healers in a group to help supplement some of the access many of you had to healing spells before this change. So in addition to helping us out with your feedback, keep an eye on the news for upcoming additions and changes.

We finished redoing the outdated monster maps within Minath Elion's city limits this morning. There are still a few monsters in various houses, but not on the same level as it was in the past. We feel these changes provide a more believable atmosphere for the city and are an important part to balancing the game.

Additionally, we added many of the new Minath npcs to the Package Delivery System and, in the future, we may add more non-combat related things to those house maps that some of you might find interesting. However, right now, we want to focus on creating some more good training areas and other goodies. So keep an eye on Minath and the rest of the game world for unannounced surprises coming down the pipe!

In other news, we made some slight adjustments to some of the guild only monk armor in the game so that they offer a level of protection that is more akin to the guild only armor of other guilds. Enjoy!

We made a slight adjustment to join player. Now, in addition to the player you want to summon having to have join turned on, he or she also needs to be allowed in your maps. So make sure you have that player invited or make sure they are grouped with you before attempting to cast the spell.

On an unrelated note we would like to, once again, remind you to be careful as you battle monsters in your quest for fame and fortune. We have continued to make adjustments to how certain damages work and so just because you never had to worry about killing a particular monster yesterday, doesn't mean it won't make soup out of you today.

As things are being fixed you may notice some changes in the damage you take (especially acid). Some will be less and some will be more. So be careful out there! As always let us know of any problems.

We've noticed that some of you have been wondering what we've been up to lately and what's next on our list of things to do. Well, to answer your first question, we've been hard at work fixing, tweaking, and adding things behind the scenes. In the past few weeks, we've gotten some major longstanding issues out of the way, but now we're taking some time to go through and add/fix some more minor things.

On the addition front, we added a tv channel for you socializers out there. People found it a bit confusing to use movies for both and had been asking for this for awhile, so here you go! If you have any ideas for more channels, you're welcome to share them with us by using the idea command, but try to steer clear of crazy channel ideas. We only want ones that are both practical and useful. So, please, no suggestions for channels that let you talk about subjects that are against the rules or for wacky things like a bathroom channel so you can have an outlet to let us all know when you take bathroom breaks (yes, someone actually suggested this).

On the fix front, there are just too many things to list and not all are obvious to the average gamer, but all had gone unresolved for far too long and were in need of a good wack with the code-fix wrench. Two examples that we think are of note involve some changes to the recycling bin and ball spell code - Ever lost a good item to a recycling bin by accident? Well, if the item is marked as kept, recycling bins will now tell you that you should unkeep it first before making your item flash and disappear! Meanwhile, I'm sure most of you high level mages have noticed that sometimes those ball spells get way out of hand and keep firing more balls than you should be allowed to have active at your current fire/water level. Well, those overcasting problems should now be a thing of the past, but if you run into it again please bug report it immediately.

As far as what's to come, you're just going to have to stay tuned. We have some really fun things planned for you and we also have serious bug fixes we want to get done. So we hope you keep helping us by play testing the game and making good use of that bug command!

Everyone's favorite Bag and Weapon namers are back! They can be found in New Verden Adventurer's Guild in the Lounge. Enjoy!

After a long hiatus, you will be happy to know armor has been repaired and its "armor class" protection is effective for you again. Now, those Orcish Chainmails are actually useful! As an added bonus, your armor can be damaged, so keep an eye on it. Let us know if you see any problems.

A long standing xp bug effecting players over level 30 has been fixed today. As such, we encourge all players who were restricted by this bug to go back to enjoying the game to its fullest! Go out, fight some monsters, do some quests, set up some pk matches with your rivals, or just continue to chat with your friends if that's your thing. Whatever it is you do, just try to enjoy yourself and have some fun!

It's been a long while since we've updated Tales from Wyvern, but we'd very much like to start it up again. So, if you have any Wyvern related writings, such as stories, poems, or songs and you want them displayed on the webpage, please visit the Tales from Wyvern section to see how to send them to us. We look forward to reading your work!

We are pleased to announce that Contrare has been promoted to Arch Wizard! He has done wonders with Wyvern code and we look forward to putting him to work. Expect some wonderful bug fixes soon (well, mostly wonderful bug fixes). You have enjoyed many of his code creations, and can look forward to more as time passes. The High Council at Wyvern's secret headquarters in Minath Elion are incredibly pleased to be promoting Contrare to the most powerful Wizard rank in the land in recognition of their efforts. Please join us in congratulating him in his new role!

Recently a former New Verden resident, the Widow Grigsby, passed away. She left a sizeable sum to the town fathers of New Verden with the request that they use the money to, "Clean it up--and for crying out loud, get rid of that rat infested, derelict house down by the hospital!"

They, with some help from the talents of Elder Wizard Binyamin, have complied with her wishes, and travelers are now invited to visit the new Grigsby Park, just south of the New Verden hospital!

As a follow up to our news story the other day about quest points, Teshuvah made some changes to the Troglodyte King Quest so that it would be possible to take off the level cap. Now, if you forgot to do the quest before level 5, you have a second chance at collecting those three extra quest points!

In other news, we've been continuing our focus on improving Wyvern's look by updating and adding more graphics. The latest batch is from two of our wizards, Arisu and Valkon. You can see some of Arisu's latest work if you explore. There were several more outdated graphics that got a makeover and there's even something new for you explorers to sink your teeth into. Meanwhile, Valkon has been updating weaponcrafting graphics over the last few days and just completed his latest batch this morning. Mithril, Diamond, and Electrinum weapons and slabs now have totally unique images! No more diamond clubs that look like they're made of wood or swords that you'd swear were of elven design.

We reduced the amount of quest points Kiz's Side Scroller gives from 20 to 7 today. That is actually the amount set when the quest was originally introduced, but due to lag and slow internet connections, people were having a hard time with it and so we bumped up the reward. Years later, that is obviously no longer an issue. Between that and the quest not being randomized, a lot of people have no problem breezing through it. Therefore, we feel this change appropriately reflects the current level of difficulty most questers face when trying to complete it.

This change will effect all players from this point on so for those of you who already did the quest, do not worry, we have not taken quest points from you. For those of you who think this is unfair to those who solve it after this point, keep in mind that this is originally how quests were supposed to work. We have not done it a lot in recent years, instead favoring to remove quests entirely and wait for the wizard to randomize it or make the difficulty match the level of reward, (which still leaves older players with quest points that newer players cannot get) but you may be seeing a return to this in the future. Which may, very well, also include raising quest points in certain areas.

• We've updated more maps: The Untrainer was redone, Janica's three mini quests had oversights/bugs fixed which includes some of those maps not being claimable, and various aspects of Minath Elion have been redone or tweaked in some way or another.
• Pictures have now joined the ranks of transferable items. It was a bit unfair that players had to pay a 10gp offering fee to auction an item that couldn't be sold for more than 3gp when they simply wanted to share a picture with a friend. So now you may feel free to use the give command to share all the pictures you want.
• Portable Homes can no longer be destroyed by spells. They still can't be bought from a game shop, but if you happen to have one, or buy one off another player, you should no longer have to worry about it being destroyed by those pesky mages if you drop it on the world map.
• We added a few more atmospheres based on your suggestions, including some that are rakshasa only.
• More errors have been fixed with the website thanks to the help of ever observant Wyvern players. As before, you can continue to let us know if you find anything that needs to be fixed by posting in this thread.

What do we have in store for you for this upcoming week? Who knows. Maybe a new random dungeon monster or two, maybe some more updated graphics, maybe more new maps and areas. We've been saying this a lot lately, but stay tuned to find out!

But that's not all. All dsms have gotten a new coat of paint, to put the change they've gone through lightly, while those Hydras we keep harping on finally got their act together and decided to look like a creature worthy of your terror. If you're not too frightened of their multi-headed attack you absolutely must try to spot one. They look great and we're not just saying that. We were blown away by what Arisu managed to do with them and we know you will be too. As always, keep an eye out for unannounced graphical changes and be sure to thank Arisu for all her hard work.

In other news, we went through the ideas log, earlier, and picked out the most reasonable recommendations for new atmospheres that we could find. As a result, there are now 16 new atmospheres for you to enjoy! One of the more interesting ideas was suggested by Randorxeous who thought it would be fun if you could use atmospheres to play a game of tag.

For a full list of available atmospheres type "atmospheres" next time you're in Wyvern or visit the atmospheres section of the player manual. If you have any ideas for more atmospheres, by all means, let us know by using the idea command.

First, we've made price adjustments to items created through weaponcrafting. They were horribly underpriced for so long and while it did not matter when they were first introduced, it has been a problem ever since 2004 when we introduced a system that no longer allowed players to sell items for whatever price they decided upon themselves. So, as you can imagine, this was high on our list of things to get to and we think you'll be happy with the amounts we've come up with. They should breathe some new life into the art and allow players to once again choose blacksmithing as a way to make money without focusing so heavily on a combat based class.

Secondly, we've made a series of adjustments to old maps. Some minor, some not so minor. On the minor side, we changed the Minath Training Hall so trainers no longer wander around. As a result you should no longer accidently end up training the wrong skill as you try to chase down a specific trainer who is keen on leading you right next to another trainer. On the not so minor side of things, we completely redid the Temple of Life. It now looks much nicer and has a few added plot points that explain what exactly happens when you find yourself dead one moment and in a temple or chapel the next. Next time you die, check it out!

But that's not all. If you're an avid player of Wyvern you should notice a few other changes, if you haven't already. Better yet, we also have more new things in store for you and more things we want to update/fix in the coming days and weeks. So keep an eye on the news and keep on exploring.

A lot of areas on the website have been out of date or in need of a correction. So, today, we went through and did just that to whatever we could find. Changes include simple things like updating the graphics used on the website so it no longer uses game graphics from 5 years ago, correcting a broken link or two, and once again adding a proper link to the rules page in the player manual. Which you should all familiarize yourselves with.

More detailed changes include the following:

• The News Archive: For the last few years, a lot of news was only being announced in newspapers found throughout the game and so the news archive poorly reflected all the things we've actually done. We have since moved everything from the newspapers to the archive so that you can browse through it to see what we've been up to if you weren't a newspaper fan or if you were hoping to search for something specific, this should make things easier for you. As for the future - We intend to post all news items on the website right away, like the old days, so check back often and regularly. We have a lot of fun things planned for you and you don't want to miss out!
• The Quest List: Like with the news archive, quests were only being updated in the Adventurer's Guild Library. While that's still a good source for your questing needs, we removed the inactive quests from the list, added the ones that were missing, and reformatted it a bit to make it easier for you to find a quest suitable for your level. Future changes to quests will be updated both there and in the adventurer's guild once more.
• FAQs: Two of the site's FAQs now answer more of those questions we all hear a lot. Feel free to refer people to them if it will help them with a particular question, but don't stop helping people personally.

Over the next few days and beyond we will make further changes and improvements, but we need your help. There's outdated information in the manuals, broken links that we have yet to spot, more frequently asked questions that we can address, and so on. So Arilou has made a post about it on the forums and asks that you help out by posting any errors or suggestions there. If you're not so inclined to make a forum account, you can ingame Arilou by using any of Wyvern's many post offices. However, keep in mind that it will be easier for us if everything is all in one thread.

Those of you with a sharp eye may have noticed that some new game art was introduced today, while some of the game's outdated graphics received a long overdue makeover. This includes, but is not limited to, custom images for Human caveman and new graphics for the healing and mana fountains that have served you all for so long. Not only do they look great, but you can now distinguish the difference between the two by the color on their bases. Special thanks to wizards Zoharial and Arisu for contributing the artwork.

In related news, our "newest" screen shot was over 5 years old, so we gave the site's screenshot section a much needed update. There is now a whole set of brand new screen shots that show off some of the game's more interesting and visually appealing content. You can compare it with our archives of older screen shots to see how far we've really come. Likewise, we want to keep up that spirit of constantly trying improve the game's look and feel, so today's update is just the beginning. There's a lot of old artwork that needs a new look, but we won't always announce it. So keep an eye out when you play the game. That ugly old hydra monster or some of those generic items you've gotten used to might be next up for a makeover. Stay Tuned!

We are pleased to announce that Arilou and Teshuvah have been promoted to Arch Wizard! These two Wizards have worked tirelessly on improving Wyvern for many, many years now, more than they care to admit. Their outstanding dedication, both to expanding Wyvern's content and to administering the day-to-day gameplay, is unmatched in Wyvern's long history of Wizard involvement. The High Council at Wyvern's secret headquarters in Minath Elion are incredibly pleased to be promoting Teshuvah and Arilou to the most powerful Wizard rank in the land in recognition of their efforts. Please join us in congratulating them in their new roles!

Sadly, an XP bug has been found in higher level characters. Until Rhialto fixes it or finds another solution players will not be able to train once they are level 30. Keep an eye here on the news for any updates or changes. Players level 30 and above are not allowed to train, pk etc and may only sit and chat, retrain, or play in the casino etc.

Platinum Armor level has been reduced to level 23. Please leave Teshuvah an ingame mail if you have any problems. Platinum Armor, and other things, can be found in Thergerim. The entrance to Thergerim is in Noir.

To start out the new year, Contrare has created a new area, on the outskirts of New Verden, which offers some truly amazing and inventive new content. If you have the time, visit the students in their dorms, stop by the gymnasium for a game of basketball, or learn something new by auditing one of the many informative classes the University has to offer.

Automated Live Quests Return
30-OCT-08

The auto-LQs of old return this week, with a fresh coat of paint, thanks to the hard work of Senior Wizard Contrare. At the moment, there are only a handful of random scenarios in the system, but more are on their way! This new auto-LQ platform will allow wizards to launch a variety of goodies for you in the future. Auto LQs are yet another exciting way to enjoy the Wyvern questing experience, in between the less frequent but more extensive wizard-run live quests and events.

Casino Island Remodeled
16-OCT-08

Today we celebrate the grand reopening of the Wyvern Casino! Tired of sitting in the auction house with nothing to do? Well then go spend some of that extra coin at the fabulous new slot machines that come complete with new and exciting prizes. A special thanks goes to the wizard Contrare for making it all possible.

Blackrose
1-July-08

Blackrose has had a minor upgrade to make it easier to move around and to allow the moving of Blackrose Mage Arena closer to the center of the city. Enjoy!

Stoneybrook
24-June-08

Stoneybrook has been rebuilt after the chaos and destruction caused during the Summer Feast. During this rebuild some expansions have occured. Be sure to look around and read the signs for info on how to purchase homes and rooms. There are suburbs, slums, treehouses to be purchased, along with rooms at the boarding house. There are even tents for those low on funds!

All Platinum armor was available for 10% of its normal value for one reboot to help those who did not cheat. We realize not every one who lost platinum will be able to get it during this reboot and apologize, but it was the best that could be done.

Platinum Armor
06-June-08

We report sadly that all platinum armor that was in players inventories had to be removed. Why you ask? Because some players found a way to dupe items and duped entire sets for themselves and their friends. To make it fair the arch wizards decided this had to be done. We apologize. The armor is still available in Thergerim for you to purchase again. If you notice other items missing in your inventory while Arch Wizards track the logs you will know this is the reason as well. Again we are sorry to those players who did not cheat, but we endeavor to keep it fair for all.

All Platinum armor was available for 10% of its normal value for one reboot to help those who did not cheat. We realize not every one who lost platinum will be able to get it during this reboot and apologize, but it was the best that could be done.

There are not many properties, so don't delay. The houses are having an open house for everyone to look around and decide for a few days. After that you will have to make an appointment with Teshuvah to fully see the properties.

First Day of Summer Feast and LQ
03-JUN-08

Stoneybrook
03-June-08

The village of Stoneybrook has been established near Almien on the World Map. You may purchase land and businesses there. Please visit the Town Hall for information on how to do this.

There are not many properties, so don't delay. The houses are having an open house for everyone to look around and decide for a few days. After that you will have to make an appointment with Teshuvah to fully see the properties.

Thergerim!
01-May-08

The Trading Town of Thergerim has begun to be explored! The rumors are that the entrance to the underground merchant city is in Noir. The gray dwarves are hearty merchants, so make sure you bring a lot of cash! But be careful, there is word of a Necromancer that seeks to steal from all who travel there.

Auction Houses!
28-April-08

We have several new Auction Houses to give you more places to gather that maybe more convenient for you. One is in Beitdag, and one is on the Isle of Maiye. Minath Auction house has also had an update to give you a little flash from the past!

ALIENS!
28-April-08

Aliens have been spotted around Wyvern! Be careful that you don't get abducted!

Valkon's New Area!
19-March-08

One of our newest wizards, Valkon, has put out an exciting new 12 point quest called "The Laboratory Debacle," located somewhere on the Western Islands. To learn more about it read the quest book in the adventurer's guild library.

Healing Nerfed
06-FEB-08

We've instituted level caps on healing spells, in response to player complaints that high-level players are "spamming" heal spells with aliases and becoming effectively death-proof. The new limits are:

• minor healing – 8th level max
• medium healing – 14th level max
• major healing – 20th level max
• heal – no limit

For example, if you're 8th level you can cast minor healing, but if you're 9th level it will have no effect on you: you'll need to upgrade to medium healing. For now, players can always cast the Heal spell (a full heal).

The source of the spell doesn't matter: you can try it with a potion or scroll, or have someone cast it on you, but if your level is above the maximum, the spell will simply be too wimpy to affect your powerful physique.

We will continue to observe the balance of heal spells, and if we feel they are still too easy to abuse, we may make further modifications to them.

Blade Spells Fixed
06-Feb-08

Static blade is fixed now, as are similar spells. You can now cast them on magic whip again. However, static blade has been slightly changed. It works 1 to 3 jolts, randomly, so players know it's actually working (since sometimes the jolt is too small to see), but it's definitely fixed so the damage doesn't stay high.

Death Bug Fixed
12-JAN-08

We've fixed the "Death Bug" that's been with the game since it came back online 3 weeks ago. The bug was that if you had a spell active when you died, you didn't actually finish dying. As convenient as you may have found this to be in your adventuring, we went ahead and fixed it, so be warned! If you die, you really die now. — The Management

Create Character and Reset Password are back
12-JAN-08

We've found and fixed a bunch of bugs in the char-creation and new-password pages. Those pages are turned back on again. If you had a new character that was reset last week, we apologize, but such are the perils of beta software.

If you have a character that you can't log in with, try deleting it and recreating it from scratch. If the character has possessions and experience you'd rather not lose, then contact a Wizard and we'll try to fix you up.

Thanks for your patience while we work our way through the remaining system bugs. 15 months of downtime created a lot of issues, but we're working on them as fast as we can.

Yowza - 3 day outage
03-JAN-08

Our server machine lost power on New Years Day, and we weren't able to restore it for three days. We're working with our ISP to be able to do on-demand restarts, so hopefully this won't happen again!

We've heard that there were some remaining problems with logging in, so for now character-creation and other helpdesk website functions are disabled. We're going to spend a few days to shore things up. You should be able to create characters by Jan 8th. In the meantime, if you are having trouble logging in with one of your characters, rest assured that we're working on fixing it asap!

Login problem fixed
27-DEC-07

For the past few days, about 200 characters have been unable to log in to the game. We've fixed the affected player files and have emailed the owners. If you have trouble logging in with one of your characters, please contact a Wizard.

Update: we accidentally reset a bunch of new characters (all created since 12/26). Oops! If you log in and find all your stuff disappeared, and you're back to level 1, please contact a Wizard and we'll set you right. Our apologies for the inconvenience as we get the game running smoothly again.

A groggy Wyvern slowly recovering strength
27-DEC-07

We've finally fixed the insidious player-creation bug. All 200 or so characters created since the game returned have been deleted, since they could not log in. You are welcome to create new characters now. Please let a Wizard know if you have any trouble. Bear in mind that currently you cannot use AOL email to create Wyvern characters, but we're working with our ISP on a fix for this.

As we predicted in the news item below, there are still some things that are broken. Two of the bigger bugs are (1) a reported "death bug" related to the Mana Shield spell, and (2) a number of existing characters cannot log in, as it freezes up the client. Thank you for your patience as we work to investigate and fix these issues.

A Merry Wyvern Holiday to You!
25-DEC-07

Happy Holidays! Wyvern is back after being offline for 15 months! Thank you all for your patience. Rhialto had a ton of stuff to do this year, and running Wyvern (even with the help of great wizards like Teshuvah and Arilou) is a big job. But the game is back now, running on a new server, new database and new website.

Some things will be broken for a while. Rhialto rewrote a lot of code last year just after bringing the game down for maintenance, but he didn't finish 100% of the work. Some of the forums, high score lists and other sites may not work for a while. But the game should be back to its old self from before the Great Hiatus – no player data or map data or game code has changed.

Thanks to all you loyal players and wizards who've kept the faith while the old game bear was hibernating. And welcome back!

Wyvern in Shop for 50,000-mile Tune-Up
01-OCT-06

On September 7th, our trusty Wyvern game server finally gave up the ghost after many faithful years of service. As a result, the website and game have been unavailable for a few weeks.

We're very busy getting Wyvern up and running on the new server. It's a huge amount of work, and the game will most likely not be allowing logins again until sometime in November. On the bright side, it'll give you time to catch up on your homework!

In the meantime, as a token of good faith, we spent a few days sprucing up our crufty old website. The content is nearly all the same, but the look and feel have changed. We hope you like it!

The new website has some glitches and broken links here and there, but rest assured we'll get around to fixing them eventually. Our first priority is getting Wyvern running again.

Thanks for your patience, and we look forward to seeing you all back here again when Wyvern starts back up in a few weeks. Wish us luck! (Note: not enough of you wished us luck, so the game was down for over a year. Next time, -really- wish us luck!)

Contrare's Labyrinth
29-Aug-06

What has Contrare gone and done now? Scream now or scream later. Someone needs your help in a log cabin in the woods. But is he evil or good? Time will only tell. Be sure to pack light-ly. For those of you long timers, it has shades of an area long since gone. And watch those score lists change, as quest points are at stake. This quest area is suitable for those level 10 and up. For more information, check out the quest book which can be found in New Verden at the Adventurer's guild quest library.

Wyvern History
20-Aug-06

Wyvern History was made when Betty reach level 33! Betty enjoyed quite a party! Many players were there to wish her well and get their very own Limited Edition Betty doll (Doll vailable for a very short time in Khaytsi). Can level 34 be far away for someone?

Rules Reminder
13-Aug-06

Just a reminder that any abuse or loophole to get around the rules will result in adminstrative actions being taken against you. Any loophole or bug that you find should be reported using the bug command. You are responsible to know the rules, which can be found here.

This includes getting around the rule that you can't invite anyone into your map that isn't within 5 levels and grouping with anyone that is not within 5 levels (no matter how you do it, it is going around those two rules).

New Wizard
12-Aug-06

A rift appeared today in the Wizard dimension! A new Wizard has appeared. The Junior Wizard Contrare has happily joined the band of wizards. Will the balance of good verses evil shift? Time will be the only judge! Beware the unknown! Soon you shall see his work ingame, check the news often as we will announce it here first!

System Maintenance and Player Purge
30-MAY-06

To improve system performance, we have removed about 60,000 players from the Wyvern database. The criteria were: (a) age is 0, (b) xp is 0, (c) level is 1, and (d) haven't logged in for over a year. It's possible that in spite of the redundant precautions, we may have deleted a character that someone was using, so we backed them up first. If you are suddenly missing a first-level character with no xp, please let an Elder Wizard know.

We took the game server down for maintenance today for about eight hours, during which time we did the purge above, fixed some bugs, and backed up our databases. We apologize for any inconvenience this maintenance outage may have caused.

Hof Gift
11-May-06

When you reach level 25, there is a present waiting for you at the Wizardess Teshuvah's Castle. You can find the castle on the Isle of Maiye, just south of the Hotel and Resort

Questing Guide
9-May-06

A guide to help new players understand questing has been put in NV Adventurer's guild Quest Library. Please feel free to guide them there if they need assistance.

Survival Guides
8-May-06

Survival Guides are now available in the New Verden Adventurer's Guild. They are transferable, so feel free to help out a new player by either buying one for them or showing them where they can purchase one themselves.

Clockwork Wyvern
6-May-06

The very fabric of time itself has come under attack. Without your help, time itself could cease. For more information, check out the quest book which can be found in New Verden at the Adventurer's guild quest library. Good luck!

New Mage Item
24-Apr-06

The wizard Cinaeth has crafted new mage only staffs for all you spellcasters. They can be found for sale in the Mage Guild's shop and should help to improve your ability to cast spells in your element of choice.

Coran Reopened!
29-Mar-06

The Elder Wizards have reopened Coran in Zifa's absence. If you see any problems or bugs in Coran please use the bug command or ingame mail a Wizard. Enjoy!

Current Game Issues
28-Mar-06

The game had DNS problems for a few days, because of this players didn't realize how to log onto the game. You all may want to put the player forums in your favorites so you can get to them without the web site next time. Then you would have known how to get online as the game itself wasn't down and we posted logon instructions there.

Also, in all the fixing last night that Rhialto was doing, the ability to put offered items in bags broke. He is working on this issue. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. Until then it's an annoyance. You can use an autobag rule to bag them for now if you want.

Wyvern's 5-Year Stats
19-MAR-06

Last month, Wyvern hit its 5-year anniversary of being open to the public. (We opened our doors for alpha on Feb 4th, 2001.) How's Wyvern been doing? Here are a few stats we've put together for you.

PLAYERS

Today we have 162,561 characters:   92.4% male, 7.5% female. The total number of Wyvern accounts ever created is now over a quarter million. (The difference is due to players deleting and re-creating their characters, or occasional purges where we delete inactive characters, and their names are re-used.)

Some people create more than one character. If you look at people (basically, email addresses) instead of characters, over 150,000 people have created an account. Over 75% of those people have active Wyvern characters.

If you add up all the time Wyvern players have spent on the game, we've logged over 130 years of 24-hour-a-day gameplay.

We also ran a quick database query to generate some stats by player race.

CHATS

Wyvern offers many ways to chat and socialize, including shouts, whispers, tells, group-tells, guild tells, "say", non-verbal emotes, wiztells, pktells, in-game email, and other mechanisms. The most popular channels are tell (over 11.4 million to date), shout (over 6 million), and say (over 3.75 million).

We've also logged over 1.2 million guild-tells, a quarter million PK channel tells, and over half a million wiz-tells (those Wizards sure are talking about you a lot!) Wyvern players are evidently not shy about sharing their feelings — we only get about 3 whispers per day.

Finally, we introduced a player-warning system in mid-2003, to help players police the game. We've had over 15,000 player warnings issued since we enabled that feature. Great job, folks!

CONTENT

All content in Wyvern is created by dedicated Wizards.

Currently we have over 15,000 unique objects in the game: monsters, armor, weapons, magical items, walls and terrain, spells, vehicles, and other goodies.

There are about 10,000 hand-created game maps, not counting auto-generated maps such as dungeons, mazes, sokoban levels, etc. Placed side by side, assuming a tile is about 1cm on your screen, these maps would be over 1.2 miles wide. Stacked vertically they'd be over a mile tall.

The scale of Wyvern maps varies by area, but if you assume that a map location in the game is (on average) 10 feet on a side, then Wyvern could be considered a "theme park" of over 15 square miles of beautiful, hand-crafted, playable territory, plus many more square miles of random content in our dungeons, mazes and caverns. And the game is always growing.

That's a lot of work from our dedicated Wizards! Not only have they created maps and objects, they've contributed artwork and source code as well. Wizards have written 50,000 lines of Java and 75,000 lines of Python code to produce custom quests, spells, areas, and fancy game effects. They've also hand-painted and uploaded nearly 20,000 images!

In all, Wyvern is about 500,000 lines of source code in Java, Python, Ruby, Perl, JavaScript and Lisp, plus about 2 million lines of hand-generated XML. And we have over 25,000 beautiful game-art images, and 3 ugly ones.

GOING FORWARD

Wyvern is a thriving, complex, challenging, wonderful game. It never stands still, and yet whenever you come back after a long absence, you'll find it as familiar as ever.

As always, Wyvern remains free to play. It's all paid for out-of-pocket by Rhialto, and the content and game administration are handled by our tireless, dedicated Wizards, most especially Teshuvah, Arilou, and Raeden.

We think Wyvern is the coolest MUD on the Web, and we encourage you to try it!

New Hof Image Requirements
19-Mar-06

Until further notice a new requirement to obtain a Hall of Fame image has been implemented.

Now, before you obtain a HoF image you must:

• Be level 25
• Have 250 quest points
• Have completed The Dark Mistress Quest
• Note that Sokoban Tower QP do not count toward the 250 QP total.

If you have these, read and follow the image guidelines on the web page, and then ingame mail a Senior or higher Wizard for further direction. You get ONE hof image only. You don't get to change it for any reason. So make sure it's what you really want and looks like your character, not a costume your character is wearing.

Blackrose
11-Feb-06

The evil thing called reality has taken a hold of our precious Wizardess Avalon. Until she returns to our midst, the Wizardess Teshuvah has been granted the priviledge of taking care of the great city of Blackrose. We hope that soon, the great wizardess Avalon will return! Hail Avalon! Return to us!

Tornaum Castle Quest updated!
14-Jan-06

Tornaum Castle Quest has been updated. Make sure you read carefully what NPCs say!

The Cat is Out of the Bag!
29-NOV-05

A resident of New Verden needs your assistance. Rachel's cat has wandered out into the forest. If you'd like to help Rachel, go to her small house on the west side of New Verden. The quest is recommended for levels 2 and up.

Stamps are here!
20-NOV-05

The Stamp Collector's Shoppe is now open for business in Beitdag! Be among the first to start the hobby of stamp collecting now!

Guild Quest change
14-NOV-05

And in exciting news for the those who want to join the Axemans Guild, the quest required to join has been changed to the Jewel of Besar. It's more in line with the difficulty of the quests for the other guilds.

Score list update
13-NOV-05

Score lists are, for now, only updating during game reboots.

Database Errors
13-NOV-05

We had some fairly severe database issues on Saturday, causing players who logged in to simply disappear. We apologize for the inconvenience. The problem has been fixed, and most of the affected players have been restored. A handful, sadly, were not recoverable. Such are the perils of playing a free game in beta test. We sincerely apologize to players the database monster ate forever.

Special thanks to Teshuvah and Arilou for once again coming to the rescue. They analyzed the problem, notified our operations staff, and helped ensure a speedy recovery for the game. We deeply appreciate the tireless efforts of Elder Wizards Teshuvah and Arilou: their vigilance in monitoring the game and their constant improvements to the game world itself have kept Wyvern thriving.

Gallador's Mansion
11-NOV-05

Legend tells us this mansion was designed over 200 years ago in the Black Barn Bar. The Black Barn was a noted den of iniquity, removed some miles from the nearest center of population due to extreme displays of public drunkeness by its patrons. Gallador himself never resided here for he died of comsumption three weeks before completion.

Since that time the mansion has gradually fallen into disrepair. Years ago a fire caused damage and legend says it is now inhabited by ghosts and that the undead roam its corridors and rooms. Nevertheless, it is also said that great treasures can be found by those brave enough to explore.

Gallador's Mansion, generally for levels 10 and under, can be found a short walk west of the Alaria Guard Tower.

Grave Robbing
22-OCT-05

News has spread among Wyvern's criminal population that the Amita graveyard is a treasure trove for graverobbers. Apparently, the King's Guard no longer has an interest in patrolling the peasantry's graves, so low lives are now free to steal everything they can dig up there, while in other places they would either be stopped before their shovel even hit the ground or had found that someone had looted all the graves years before they even got there. However, should you decide to join them in their dark deeds, beware, for disturbing the dead has its dangers and the last thing you would want is one coming alive to feast on your warm flesh.

Nightmares
27-SEP-05

Two new areas have burst forth from the nightmares of Binyamin's mind!

The Shoggoth Caverns are hidden deep inside sunny Beitdag. Do you have what it takes to find the entrance and brave the Arch Shogoliches within?

Dragondell stands to the north of the Black Forests of Oxbow. Enjoy its quiet paths, its gentle wildlife, its scenic beauty. Only don't venture too deep, for there is a horrible evil contained within!

Fixes and Friendmuffs
21-AUG-05

In other news, we've fixed the infamous "top-o'-the-hour" bug (also known as the "login bug") that would cause the Town Crier to become confused and schedule early reboots several times a day. We've sent him to counselling and bought him a new watch, and all seems to be going well now.

Finally, we've gradually dialed the game reboot cycle back up to every 6 hours over the past few days. The long-term goal is to have the game not reboot more than once a day or so. We'll keep an eye on it with the setting at 6 hours and see how it fares.

Darcy's Retreat
05-JUN-05

Sokoban Prizes Retired
29-APR-05

Solving the levels is now officially its own reward! As always, the Tower remains a fun puzzle for curious and intelligent players looking for a different kind of challenge.

Inside sources tell us that Rhialto had a tear in his wizened eye as he tapped his wand on the prize machine, sending it to Bermuda for a comfortable retirement on the beach. "I love all Wyvern players equally," the ancient ArchWizard was overheard to mutter, "but sometimes I just can't help feeding a cheater to my pet Razortooth Chaos Wyvern, Fluffy. He says they taste better than regular players." Rhialto then shook a large mothball out of his beard, wandered into a corner of the room, and apparently turned into a large houseplant.

Fluffy was unavailable for comment.

New Area
28-FEB-05

The wizard Kharpern has created a new jungle area for exploring. The entrance is a volcano southwest of Rakshasa Haryma. Speaking of exploring, I wonder how many of you have found the extensive area in the jungles east of Rakshasa Harmya that the wizard Teshuvah created a while back? Have fun exploring!

Fishing and More!
11-JAN-05

Fishing has arrived in Wyvern. You can fish in New Verden and the Davos ruins if you are a beginner. And you can fish in Glacier Point and on the Isle of Maiye if you are a pro. Find the fishing shacks, read the signs and speak to the shopkeepers for details!

The Isle of Maiye has had a number of updates: a troll village on the eastern side of the isle, a wildflower patch with pickable flowers, a new flower shop on the pier, a treat shop and more!

There have been other updates, too, including the forests of Glacier Point, the jungles of Rakshasa Harmya, and PK arenas in Oxbow, to name a few.

Alaria Gauntlet Remodeled
10-JAN-05

New Areas
29-SEP-04

Shout Channels
29-SEP-04

Game Server
25-SEP-04

Night and Day
20-SEP-04

Identified Items and Stores
19-SEP-04

Nagas
12-SEP-04

The other long-standing bug is that the dragon and hydra forms weren't being slowed down correctly. Viper and cobra were correctly sped up a bit, but the larger forms weren't slowed down.

Ch-Ch-Changes
08-SEP-04

Some of the food you encounter may be spoiled, and hence poisonous. Given the lack of refrigeration, some types of food spoil faster than others, so be careful what you eat!

Finally, more monsters have inventories now, so you'll find more things to sell when looting corpses than before.

Wyvern Post Explorer
06-SEP-04

Demon Hordes Quest
04-SEP-04

The Estate of Portis Blackroot
03-SEP-04

Your Character
24-AUG-04

Server Outage
23-AUG-04

Turned to Stone
03-AUG-04

Rangers
02-AUG-04

I Hunger
29-JUL-04

Isle of Maiye
28-JUL-04

The area also features a new quest, The Orb of Maiye. Both can be found on an island in the southwest, which you can find on the worldmap.

Armorcrafting
14-JUL-04

Bura Shaan Remodel
11-JUL-04

Watery Wonderland
15-JUN-04

Also, a number of bugs have been fixed in Fenixdown's skinning and armorcrafting system. If you find more problems, please report them with the bug command.

New Area
14-JUN-04

Resists Redux
14-JUN-04

More on Resists
13-JUN-04

Wyvern Glossary
12-JUN-04

Resists and Caps
11-JUN-04

New Guild, New Quest
07-JUN-04

ISP Outage
05-JUN-04

Tornaum Castle
04-JUN-04

Live Quests
01-JUN-04

/player Manual
31-MAY-04

Repairs and Auctions
28-MAY-04

Mining
25-MAY-04

Reboot Cycle
21-MAY-04

Package Delivery System
13-MAY-04

Rules Clarification
13-MAY-04

Beautiful New Area
11-MAY-04

Auction Prices
10-MAY-04

1. Complain in shouts about how messed up auction limits are.
2. Sell items back and forth until you both get the price you want.
3. Report the problem with the bug command

Ships Ahoy!
04-MAY-04

There have been a number of bug fixes, most of which will be unnoticed by all but a very few.

The drop rates for dragons and some other creatures has been increased (shocking, I know) some. The balance of gold, XP, etc. is still being tuned. We'll get better at tuning it as we develop better tools for tracking how slow or fast people gain money and experience.

Finally, the ruins near Rakshasa Harmya have been expanded a bit, with some fun stuff for levels 6-12.

More Changes
30-APR-04

There's a new quest, the Westerly Forest quest. It's for levels 7-9 and is worth 3 QP.

There are a fair number of player-run sites for Wyvern, but a particularly well done site is Wyvern Answered. Nicely done guides to the live quests, different artifact weapons, and maps and descriptions of the different areas in Wyvern. And a sometimes very amusing news ticker.

Finally, the mix for random artifacts has been freshened up a bit. You may see different artifact weapons than you're used to, or sometimes you'll end up with a nice gem instead. And you may notice a change or two to the vorpal blade artifact.

Minor Changes
23-APR-04

To help reduce lag a bit in PK arenas, deaths no longer leave a gravestone in PK areas. Popular PK arenas like the mage arena in Blackrose routinely got dozens and dozens of gravestones each reboot cycle, sometimes as many as 10 per square.

Finally, there's a new monster that you may encounter in random dungeons and other areas, a nasty brute called the monopod.

Amazing Glacier Point Remodel
06-APR-04

Bug Fixes
01-APR-04

New Minath Monster Arena
24-MAR-04

The Minath Elion Monster Arena, which has served us faithfully since December of 2001, has been showing its age. Players have been getting more powerful over the years, and we finally had to draw the line when someone beat the arena with guest6. The Minath Arena has been completely remodeled, with contributions from Rhialto, Legolas, Teshuvah, Janica, Raeden, Caius, and Knop. The original arena high-score list has been preserved, and we will be releasing some statistics on what's been one of Wyvern's most popular features for well over 2 years, with over 25,000 fights and over 4,000 distinct participants. Feel free to test your skills against the new and improved Minath Monster Arena today! As always, it can be found in the royal city of Minath Elion, northeast of the castle.

Troglodyte Quest
22-MAR-04

Various Changes
17-MAR-04

• The Wizard Maahes did art and settings for a nasty new undead creature some of you have encountered, the ghast.
• The Wizard Knop drew corpses for many of the NPCs in Wyvern (remember that killing in towns is a crime, though!).
• The Wizard Ramtusk drew a cool corpse for dracoliches.
• The player Quade contributed some images for the Axeman guild hall in Varak.
• The Wizard Legolas and the player Deathwish spent some time fine-tuning random dungeons, so they're now quite a bit more interesting than they were before, with a better mix of monsters.

New Client
07-MAR-04

Spell of the Swamp Witch Quest
01-MAR-04

Item Transfers, part II
01-MAR-04

Item Transfers
29-FEB-04

Odin's Eye Quest Prizes
28-FEB-04

New Areas, New Looks
27-FEB-04

Also, wizards continue to remodel and improve existing areas. Amita (Arilou), Coran (Zifa) and the castle in Blackrose City (Avalon) have all gotten remodels, large and small. Check out the castle in Blackrose City next time you're there -- it's beautiful.

ISP Problems
24-FEB-04

Server Outage
23-FEB-04

Khaytsi City
21-FEB-04

/player Land
17-FEB-04

Quest Prizes
15-FEB-04

Bold New Verden
12-FEB-04

Tons of Changes
11-FEB-04

• There are four new spells: Darkness, Fortress, Imprison, and Thunderstorm.
• Summoned creatures now give you XP for their kills.
• You can now get Caveman Guild XP when wielding claws.
• We've removed the Resurrection spell, since it was mostly used for cheating, but you can still buy or find the scrolls.
• We removed the Create Water spell because you shouldn't be able to create spell reagents.
• You can now see the weight and shop value for auctioned items.
• Many (but not all!) silly names have been disallowed for new characters.
• We made all other guilds more powerful with respect to Paladins - by nerfing Paladins. :-) We just took their healing bonus away, so they're still the Big Bullies of Guild-dom.
• We've fixed dozens of bugs reported by various players.

Rakshasa Leopards
06-FEB-04

Minath Castle Remodel
26-JAN-04

New Rakshasa Images
25-JAN-04

New Archers Guild
21-JAN-04

New Names Available
21-JAN-04

Portable Holes
20-JAN-04

New Area
12-JAN-04

In other news, the Odin's Eye quest has been raised to 60 quest points. Will you be the first to solve it?

Sortable Spells
11-JAN-04

Skill Points Fixed
07-JAN-04

The bad news is: 86% of the adjustments were negative. Only 156 players got more skill points. 945 people lost points. It looks like we had a bug where you could accidentally get more skill points than you were allowed to have. Look on the bright side: those 945 players got extra skills for free, for a while! Here's the list of players who gained or lost points.

We didn't automatically untrain anyone. If your skill points are negative right now, then before you can train again, you'll need to untrain in skills until you have at least one skill point.

If your skill points were changed, you'll have mail waiting in the Post Office from the Game Driver telling you many you gained or lost.

Thanks for everyone's patience while we fixed this long-standing bug!

More Tales from Wyvern
06-JAN-04

Also, Legolas is slooooowly getting caught up on email. If you've sent him an email with stories, maps or artwork, and not yet received an answer, send him a reminder email.

Bug Fixes
03-JAN-04

• you wouldn't get XP or monster corpses when grouped
• sometimes shooting arrows would cause them to become unpaid (if still you have arrows like this, sell them, then unsell them to fix it)
• uncurse altars would sometimes uncurse items you didn't own
• some items were showing up unidentified/no-price in shops
• Autobagging bugs:
  • the "autobag shortcut arrows" was broken
  • you could create autobag rules with the same name (confusing)
  • you could create identical autobag rules
  • you could create rules with bags with the same name match, which just searches for the same bag twice

• You can "delete all" to delete all your messages.
• You can "delete all <name>" to delete the messages from a particular player, e.g. if they're spamming you. (We're working on ways to prevent post-office mail spam.)
• Reading a message doesn't change its ordering, which was confusing. Your messages are always listed by date now, with the newest messages at the bottom.

Thanks for reporting all the bugs; please keep those reports coming!

Heimdal Rocks!
31-DEC-03

Congratulations are very much in order for our Raeden, who is our newest Senior Wizard!

Autobag Is Here
29-DEC-03

We've written a complete autobag manual with a comprehensive tutorial, and lots of examples. Feedback on this feature is welcome! We hope you enjoy it.

Pixie Power
24-DEC-03

The cleanup that we did helped support a new feature: Pixies now have access to "fly" and "land" commands. By default, they're flying, but they can land on the ground now when needed (e.g. to activate small buttons.)

Lastly: Happy Holidays to all! If you haven't logged in to Wyvern lately, you should check it out, just to see all the snow Legolas put in.

Lore Points
21-DEC-03

649 players got more points, and 210 were docked points. Most players only received or lost 1 to 4 points. Several dozen gained over 30 points, and two or three got over 100. The record was lickghy, who was somehow short 143 points.

Most of the 210 players who had too many only lost a handful, and nobody lost more than 13. A very few players might have negative lore point values now. That just means that before they can learn new spells, they have to unlearn enough to get back to positive numbers.

In other news: the Sword of Noir had a bug that prevented you from naming it, and it's been fixed.

Uncurse Altars
20-DEC-03

Reboot Time
20-DEC-03

More Player Owned Homes
16-DEC-03

Snow!
16-DEC-03

New Area
14-DEC-03

Congratulations to Arilou on an exciting new area. Have fun exploring... but be careful!

Rules Reminder
13-DEC-03

Regarding stolen items when selling items, the best way to ensure against theft is to use the auction house in New Verden or Almien. You can even use it to offer the item to a specific player and safely make trades.

More Tales from Wyvern
01-DEC-03

Support Spells
29-NOV-03

We've fixed it so you can cast various "support" spells on other players: all the Resistance spells, as well as Strength, Speed, Regeneration and Bravery. You can also cast Confuse Monster on players in PK zones.

Tales from Wyvern
24-NOV-03

Chat Channels
23-NOV-03

Anvil Repaired
22-NOV-03

We've promoted Fenixdown to Senior Wizard, in recognition of his numerous contributions to Wyvern. His creations include the Wyvern Trading Card Game (TCG), pelting knives, the team capture-the-flag game, and numerous other clever inventions. He's got many others in the works, and we're looking forward to all of them. Congratulations, Fenix!

New Areas
20-NOV-03

Mage Spells
31-OCT-03

Lots of News
25-OCT-03

Rhialto has fixed the player-freeze bug. Not only should that bug not happen again, but the part of Wyvern responsible for it is now faster than before (a better hamster wheel, for those of you who read his blog).

There are a number of smaller bug fixes, too: the archers guild store and other shops with random enchanted weapons should load correctly now. And to help exercise the code, the axemans guild store now has a much better selection of enchanted axes for sale to guild members.

Some additional problems with XP-draining and restoration have been fixed. Note that you now can no longer restore XP that was drained if you die, or if you go up a level.

Restoration Spell
18-OCT-03

There are also somewhat cheaper scrolls of partial restoration that will restore 50% of the XP you've lost.

New Channel
13-OCT-03

New Mayor, New Areas
02-OCT-03

In other news, the new wizard Binyamin has opened a new area, the Oxbow River Wildlife Sanctuary. It has areas for levels 8 and up, and a new 3-point quest that you can read about on the quests page. The Sanctuary can be found north of the Zoo.

Other training areas added recently include Kupior's Elven Grove (levels 8 and up) and Raeden's Wet Cave (levels 4-6). We'll be adding more such areas in the coming weeks.

Collection of Relics Quest
16-SEP-03

/player Owned Homes!
29-SEP-03

Kupior's Labyrinth
10-SEP-03

Wyvern Getting Popular
09-SEP-03

• Two levels of experience
• An amulet that increases the damage you do against other players by 10%

Our loyal Wyvern players have been taking the test, and yesterday we finally broke into the Top 10 List! If you haven't taken the test, please take a few minutes to answer the questions and find out what you like to do best on MUDs.

If you've already taken the test, thanks for helping Wyvern make the Top 10!

New, Thawed Client
07-SEP-03

Note: after you install it, your title bar should say: "Wyvern Client version 1.4.8, with Java 1.4.2". If it doesn't say that, then you haven't downloaded the newest version, and it'll freeze on you. The "Java 1.4.2" at the end is important.

Thanks to everyone for being so patient while we got this fix out there. Enjoy the new music, new artwork, and smooth operation!

New Items, and Bug Update
05-SEP-03

We've also added the new spell Resurrection. It's a lore-25 spell, so people are unlikely to learn it, but it's available in scroll form as well. Resurrection works as follows:

• If you cast it on a player's gravestone (including your own), the player who died will get back up to 95% of the XP that they lost.

• "Up to 95%" is actually a random number anywhere from 5% to 95%, depending on the LIFE level of the caster. Scrolls give anywhere from 65% to 95% of the XP back.

• Guild XP is restored as well: if you get back 90% of your lost XP, you'll get back 80% of your lost guild XP.

• If you die more than once, you can cast the spell on each gravestone you leave. You can't cast the spell more than once per gravestone.

• You can use the scrolls and spell in no-magic areas.

• Gravestones are now indestructible, except for gravestones left from PK matches. You don't lose XP in a PK match, so it doesn't matter if these are destroyed.

• If you can't find the gravestone, you can't get your XP back. Period. That means if you die on level 50 of a random dungeon, well, you'd better have a way to get back there before it resets.

The scrolls are available in magic shops, and cost a trifling 50,000 gold. But they're a bargain at any price!

We've also fixed two of the four server-side crash bugs: the teleporters-stop-working bug, and the spells-stop-moving (followed shortly afterwards by a server crash) bug. The take-1-step-and-freeze bug is still open, and happens occasionally, but we're working on it. The fourth bug is a Java VM crash that we're contacting Sun about.

Lastly, the game client still freezes for a lot of people. We've tracked this down to a bug in the version of Java that bundled with the client, even the newest one. We'll launch an updated version this weekend that should fix the problem.

Enjoy!

Create Trap &amp; Friends
05-SEP-03

Server Outage
01-SEP-03

Claws and Arrows, Axemans Guild quest
28-AUG-03

Claws of various types for rakshasas are available in the store in Rakshasa Haryma. The stock changes regularly, so check back for your favorites.

And in exciting news for the those who want to join the Axemans Guild, the quest required to join has been changed to the Frozen Abyss quest. It's more in line with the difficulty of the quests for the other guilds.

New Areas Opening
26-AUG-03

Client Update
24-AUG-03

1. Go to Start Menu -> Control Panel ->Add/Remove Programs and uninstall the Wyvern Client.
2. Re-download and install the 1.4.6 Wyvern Client
3. Start playing!

New Client!
23-AUG-03

The new client includes:

• Sound and music support. We have some music and a very few sounds (not many), but the support is there, and we'll continue to improve it. The sound/music support may have bugs in it, but we think it's important to get it into your hands so you can give us feedback.

• An automatic updater. You'll get updates automatically when we install bug fixes and new features.

• Lag Fixes. The new client is much faster for partial-screen updates, which means you shouldn't lag as much when you're surrounded by spells. Thanks to the Archwizard Caius for putting in this fix.

You can download it here.

If your system has instability (and trust us, we have LOTS of different systems running this new client), you might consider going into the Settings dialog (Edit Menu) and turning off sound and music until there's another update.

Make sure your speakers are turned on, and go stand near a fountain to test the sound. We hope you enjoy it!

We also added a few new monster and combat changes:

• Little red splatters when damage occurs. It's just an experiment, and we'll add an option to turn them off eventually.

• Some monsters that are badly wounded will try to run away from you.

Friends
23-AUG-03

• The invite command now shows you who you're inviting if you just type "invite".

• The invite and uninvite and commands both now work even if the player is offline.

• There's a new friends command that lets you set up and manage a list of friends who you're always inviting into your maps. Unlike invite and uninvite, which are temporary, friends persist across reboots.

• There are new friendtell and friendwho commands as well.

• The guild-tell commands (magetell, archertell, paladintell, and so on) now pay attention to who is ignoring the teller, so annoying people can't spam you via guild-tells.

Ice Caverns
23-AUG-03

Combat Update
23-AUG-03

• Weapons of speed will be changed to modify your attack speed, rather than your melee skill.

• You can no longer do a bunch of damage by wielding a bow and bashing things with it. Get a regular weapon and wield it, and ready your bow, and you'll be able to fire and fight at the same time.

• The new Rakshasa weapons aren't showing up in shops yet, but we're working on it.

Finally, the hydra-nerfing is temporary. More info has shown that hydras are actually only #9 on the race list for making XP, so we really only need to balance them for PK fights.

Combat Fixed!
22-AUG-03

Important: The Melee skill is being retired in favor of weapon skills. Don't bother untraining in it: this weekend we'll be untraining everyone in it automatically and restoring the skill points (but not gold spent, since you got benefit from the skill while you had it.)

News Update
22-AUG-03

We nerfed Hydras again, very slightly, for the fourth time since they were added to the game. It's always a delicate balance, because Hydras are much more effective in the PK arenas than they are at killing monsters. Nagas are actually only the fifth most powerful race when it comes to gaining experience, so we can't really nerf them much more.

We're also working very hard on the server-instability problems: game freezes, maps not loading, lag, and disconnects. We know the root causes for each of the problems, and hope to have the problems resolved within the next 2 weeks. It has, however, put our music client on hold, since stability is the highest priority. We'll continue to post frequent updates, and we appreciate the help and bug reports from all of our great players.

Features and Fixes
21-AUG-03

(New) We've added three new spells: Frost Ward, Lightning Shield, and Prismatic Shield, all of which are similar to Flame Shield but use different elements.

We've also fixed a problem where an Archer wielding a bow would do massive damage with the bow as a melee weapon. This was patently unrealistic, and we received numerous complaints about it. In better news for Archers, we're planning on creating some Elemental Arrows (Flame Arrows, Lightning Arrows, and so on) as soon as the artwork comes in, hopefully in the next few days. This should help Archers against monsters that can't take physical damage.

Connection Problems
20-AUG-03

Alignment
19-AUG-03

Game Outage, and new features
13-AUG-03

In better news, we've fixed a few long-standing (but annoying) bugs, and added some minor features:

• you can no longer lose XP from killing yourself in the BR mage arena
• torches and lanterns no longer burn out when you turn them off
• you can no longer kill players by casting a spell and then running into a playerkilling map
• we fixed "last shout" to show the last shouts, not the first ones (oops!)
• there's a new "tnl" command to show you how much XP you need to get to the next experience level

In even better news, we're rapidly approaching being able to release a brand-new game client. It includes support for sound and music, and also an auto-updater so you don't have to re-download it every time there are changes. We've spent months working on it, and are finishing up some final features. It should be ready in less than two weeks. And it sounds great!

Wrath of the Fey Quest
12-AUG-03

Bura Shaan
03-AUG-03

Mages Guild
27-JUL-03

More Map Changes
22-JUL-03

Giant Changes
20-JUL-03

World Map Changes
20-JUL-03

Shout Points
19-JUL-03

You can see how many shout points (and warning points) you have left by typing the new command, "points".

Inventory Limits
17-JUL-03

Bug Update
13-JUL-03

• Portable Homes work again, although they can't be placed on the continent yet (still working on that).
• The last command is working again. Try: last tell, last shout, last say, last whisper, last magetell, last monktell, etc.
• Small buttons work again.
• A number of items that were temporarily broken, like the newbie quests, are working again.

XP Clarification
06-JUL-03

We may decide to keep invincible monsters in the game, just to spice things up and keep otherwise-bored players on their toes. Consider yourself warned!

Security Reminder
05-JUL-03

Just a reminder: do not share your password with anyone. Wyvern wizards will never ask you for your password. Do not use so-called "character creator" sites, as they are nothing more than scams to try to get your password and character.

Also, remember that anyone can view the bug reports, so do not include your password or other personal information in bug reports, just describe the bug and what your character was doing when it happened.

Finally, if you get email claiming to be about testing Wyvern 3D, don't open it. There is no such program; the email contains a virus, and is not from this site.

New Client Installer
29-JUN-03

We've released a brand-new Wyvern Client Installer. It works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and Windows users don't even have to download Java anymore. It comes with it! It also installs and uninstalls much faster than the old one did. Please give the new client a try and let us know if you have any trouble with it.

Note: there are no new features in this version (version 1.1.5, or 1.1.1 for WebStart). We will launch a new feature-release version of the client in mid-July.

Electrinium Equipment
28-JUN-03

All existing Electrinium Swords and Armor have been removed from the game, thanks to Aznassasin, an ex-Wyvern player who opted to create approximately 140 of them and give them away for free. If you need another set, you know where to find them. However, be warned that we consider the current armor and weaponcrafting system to be extremely unbalanced, and we will be nerfing it considerably in the coming weeks. I'd just avoid it if I were you. -Rhialto

New Area Open
23-JUN-03

The town of Coran, created by the wizard Zifa, is now open. It's just southwest of Minath Elion. Find it on the world map.

Feast and LQ
22-JUN-03

The First Day of Summer Feast and LQ was a lot of fun, both for the players who took part and the wizards who spent lots of time preparing for it.

Thanks to all the wizards who helped, including Fenixdown for introducing the TCG, Knop for the delicious and interesting foods, Legolas for the festival maps and beer, various wizards for organizing different events and a special thanks to Ender for organizing the whole event including the live quest.

There is a monument to those who died and to the brave players who took part in the live quest in (what is now) the ruins of Lirkka.

Wyvern Trading Card Game
21-JUN-03

The wizard Fenixdown has create a new game to play in Wyvern, the Wyvern Trading Card Game, or TCG for short. Decks will be available in stores soon. Read the rules for TCG. Nice work, Fenixdown!

New Areas Opened
13-JUN-03

The town of Terrim, created by the wizard Malla, is now open. It's a peaceful town on the island northeast of Mist Temple, with places to explore and treasures to be found.

Also, the village of Lirkka is now open. It's a small but bustling mining town near the Cavemans Guild and Stensele.

Find them both on the world map.

First Day of Summer Feast and LQ
09-JUN-03

The wizards will be putting on a special event on Saturday, June 21st. There will be games, feasting, tournaments, all capped off with a live quest. The feasting will be going on most of the day, and the live quest will begin later in the day. There will be more information as the event draws closer. This should be a big, fun event, with things to do for all levels, so don't miss it!

New World Map
09-JUN-03

Legolas has created a new world map, featuring some artwork by Knop. Not only is it even more beautiful than the previous version, you can click on it to tell you more about the major towns and areas in the lands of Wyvern. Check it out on the world map page.

Welcome to Malla
08-JUN-03

Welcome to our newest wizard, Malla. She's hard at work on a new area that will be online soon.

Floriana
03-JUN-03

The beautiful town of Floriana, created by Anala, is now open. Besides the plant-filled town itself, check out the nearby ruins. It's on an island west of Fae Sahvar. Find it on the world map.

Welcome to Anala
02-JUN-03

A belated welcome to our newest wizard, Anala. She's created a beautiful new area that will be online soon.

100 Simultaneous Players!
02-JUN-03

Today we had 100 players and wizards online, with no lag! While bandwidth is still sometimes an issue, the server is doing great under the load.

Zypher's Maps Quest
30-MAY-03

There's a new quest, Zypher's Maps quest, created by, you guessed it, the wizard Zypher. Read more about on the quests page, and in the Adventurers Guild.

Player Warning System
28-MAY-03

You can now issue official Warnings to other players who are harassing or annoying you. Make sure to read the Warning System Rules carefully before using this feature!

A researcher from the University of Washington is studying this system and its use, as part of a class project. Use and reactions to the warning system will be used in a report for the project.

WyvernPost System
24-MAY-03

Looking to earn some money? WyvernPost delivers from coast to coast! But they need your help to do it. There are WyvernPost stations in New Verden, Alaria, Bandar Gaah and Almien (usually in the local post office). You can pick up packages there and be paid for each successful delivery.

Congratulations to Fenixdown for creating this new system!

Quest List
23-MAY-03

Wondering what quests you've done on which character? Wonder no more! Check out the orb of knowledge in the Adventurers Guild in New Verden for a list of which quests you've solved.

Demon Hordes Quest
22-MAY-03

There's a new quest, the Demon Hordes Quest. It's the new quest required for joining the Paladins Guild. Read more about on the quests page, and in the Adventurers Guild.

Hall of Mages Quest
20-MAY-03

Stonewing has re-opened the Hall of Mages quest in Fae Wyston. Thanks for your patience while it was being worked on.

Treasures of the Pyramid Quest
15-MAY-03

There's a new quest, the Treasures of the Pyramid. The quest is set in the desert area of Bandar Gaah and Jbel. Read more about on the quests page, and in the Adventurers Guild.

Welcome to Astor
12-MAY-03

Welcome to our newest wizard, Astor (yclept Shawn). As soon as exams are finished, he'll be working on a new area for you to adventure in.

Combat Bug
11-MAY-03

Many of you have noticed that you've been missing a lot lately when doing hand-to-hand combat. We finally tracked the bug down; it was introduced on May 1st. Combat should be back to normal now. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Metric System
11-MAY-03

There's a new command, units, that lets you switch to the metric system for seeing object weights. Type "units metric" to see weights in kilos, and "units english" to see weights in pounds.

There's also a new command, wizards, that lets you see if there are any (visible) Wizards online.

New Client Installer
10-MAY-03

We've created a new Wyvern Client Installer, so you don't have to use the Java Web Start version anymore. Many, many people have had trouble with the WebStart version, and this installer should hopefully fix it for them.

Visit the Download Page to get a copy. If you're already playing with the WebStart version, you can keep using it if you want.

Make sure you hit shift+reload in your browser to get the latest version of the download page. If it says a bunch of stuff about a not-recommended version, reload the page!

Note: - we've uploaded a new version, 1.1.3, that fixes a bug in seeing new wizard artwork.

What Kind of Player Are You?
10-MAY-03

There's a famous test called the Bartle Test that tells you what kind of MUD player you are - Achiever, Explorer, Socializer, or Killer. You can take the test here. At the end, please list Wyvern as one of the MUDs you play regularly (if you do), so we can move up on the list. Thanks!

New Map Editor
09-MAY-03

We've released a new Map Editor (version 1.2.4) with many bug fixes and some new features.

The Wyvern Map Editor no longer uses Java Web Start. We've made an installer program to install the standalone version on your computer. The installer is currently in beta. If you would like to try it out, please visit the Map Editor Download Page.

Note: another version is out - 1.2.5. It fixes a bug where spellcasting monsters couldn't be loaded, and a bug where you couldn't add items to monster inventories.

Drache City
09-MAY-03

Drache City, created by the new wizard Cerebro, is now open. It's on the southern continent, between Almien and Scihaya. It's an odd, sometimes dangerous town. So check it out...but be careful! Find it on the world map.

Zypheria
08-MAY-03

The town of Zypheria, created by one of the newest wizards, Zypher, is now open. It's on an island south of New Verden and east of Mist Temple. Find it on the world map. Zypher has more planned, including a quest and custom graphics, so check it out.

Lots of News
04-MAY-03

First, we'd like to announce the promotions of three new Wizards: Zypher, Cerebro and, most recently, Pollux. They're all working on exciting new areas for you to visit.

Second, we've changed teleporters. You no longer have to wait for a map to load, and then apply the teleporter again. It just takes you to the map after it's loaded.

Note: Random Dungeons are currently broken by the teleporter changes, and we'll be fixing them as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience with this.

Third, we've added some extra command-line history features, described in the new command-line editing tutorial in the Player Manual.

Finally, there's a brand-new Wyvern Tutorial in the Training Tower in New Verden. New players will start there automatically. Everyone gets their own copy of the Tutorial when they enter.

The Wyvern Tutorial was designed by the esteemed Arch Wizard Legolas. Hopefully it will make the game easier to learn for new players, and make new players easier to bear for old players!

Athendel
04-MAY-03

The town of Athendel, created by the wizard Cairpre, is now open. It's west of Alaria, and includes a quest, intended for levels 3-5.

Minor Client Update
30-APR-03

We've released a new version of the client (1.1.1). Web Start users should get it automatically next time they play.

Changes in 1.1.1:

• Went back to Java look and feel for now, to fix a keyboard bug.
• Fixed alt macros to work correctly.
• You can now change the fonts, and it remembers your settings.
• Rewrote the Keyboard dialog for changing command-line editing keys
• Made readied-item image a bit smaller, to fit better
• Save-password is now a user-settable option
• Now show Encumbered, Burdened, etc. in load-meter mouse-hover text
• New option for disabling stay-on-top for chat window
• Removed the Sound tab until we have sound and music

There are no new versions of the PDA clients.

Auction Houses
29-APR-03

Auction houses are now open in New Verden (near the armor shop) and Almien (upstairs in the general store).

Fixes and Features
27-APR-03

Some new features:

• We've added a Safe Trading System. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we had before (i.e. nothing). You can read about it in the Player Manual.

  Note: There is now a fee of 10 gold coins to offer something for auction, to help cut down on the littering. We will eventually only allow you to drop offered items in approved auction houses.

• The keep command works slightly differently now. If you keep an item, nobody else can pick it up. This should prevent archers from losing arrows, and other bugs. It doesn't work for items that you marked "kept" before - you have to unkeep all your items and re-keep them if you want this feature.

• Looking at a weapon or armor now shows you its level requirements.

• The Magic Mapping spell has been enabled, and we've also added an Excavation spell that does a cone of digging.

Bug Fixes
26-APR-03

We've fixed over 200 bugs in the past few days - most of them fairly minor map and object bugs, but also a few big ones:

• the invincible-monster bug
• the uncurse-altar bug
• the gold-meter updating bug
• the bug where players could stack on trees and entrances
• you can no longer hide from spells on fountains, bear rugs, etc.
• you can now destroy generators and scrolls with spells
• enchanted arrows no longer stack with regular ones

Fixed Handheld Clients
17-APR-03

We've uploaded new versions of the iPAQ and Zaurus Handheld Clients. This patch release fixes the connection issues. The clients have been tested thoroughly and should work well for all the PDA Wyvern addicts out there.

We've also added an Install Packages via Networks option, which makes it really easy to install Wyvern directly to your Sharp Zaurus.

Download Troubles
17-APR-03

Some players have helped me find a problem that's been causing the new client not to work for some people. The problem is that the client needs the latest version of Java (1.4.1 or higher), because 1.3 was buggy.

You can get the latest version here:

If you can't run Wyvern, you should uninstall your current version of Java and Java Web Start, and upgrade to 1.4.2 beta.

Several people are seeing the message "Unable to run Wyvern Web Client 1.0". If this happens to you, try clicking here:

Hopefully this will help - it's a direct link to the 1.1 client, so your computer won't try to run the old version.

New Client
16-APR-03

We've launched the latest Wyvern Game Client for your playing pleasure. New features and fixes include:

• Zooming is now fast, and there are 4 levels of zooming.
• There's an optional Spell View for fast spell switching.
• There's a new XP gauge that shows XP required for next level.
• We added toolbar icons for common commands, for newbies.
• There's now a Commands menu containing many game commands.
• Copy now works in the server text-output window.
• We added Select All and Clear to all output windows
• There is new support for graphics in the server window.
• The client now saves some of your UI preferences, although not font sizes (yet).
• We rearranged stat view to be more readable, with more info (Thank Legolas for the great new design if you see him online!)
• We fixed some keyboard-navigation problems.
• There's now mouse-hover text for inventory items.

Some important things to know about the new client:

1. You can turn off the Toolbar icons in the Tools menu.

2. You can click on the HP/SP bars to turn the numbers on and off.

3. If the client is causing your computer to lag or crash, you should clear the Server Output window every 5 minutes or so, by right-clicking on it and choosing "Clear".

4. If you're having trouble downloading the 1.1 client, open your Java WebStart from your Start Menu, and remove the old Wyvern Game Client 1.0.

• Music and sound effects.
• Reduced lag during heavy spells.
• See and control how much memory and bandwidth the client uses.
• ICQ-like chat windows.
• A lag meter.
• Asian character support.
• Much more!

Thurgood's Store
16-APR-03

Thurgood's is now open! It's an interesting store, to say the least, and contains items for sale no where else. But would you expect anything less from Zerth? Due to Thurgood's personal commitment to low, low prices, he's set up shop outside of any existing tax districts, towns, or municipalities.

Note: if you have a finder, it will be updated to include Thurgood's the next time you log in.

Monk Armor
14-APR-03

As some of you have already discovered, there is now some cloth armor that monks can wear. As with most armor, it appears randomly in shops. There's also a shop in the monks guild. More cloth armor coming soon!

Bug Fixes
04-APR-03

We've fixed the following bugs:

• the infamous xp-loss and item-loss bug
• the bug that prevented you from using the berserk skill
• the forgot-password bug on the website
• the bug preventing the high-score list from generating

Password Bug
02-APR-03

There was a bug in generating passwords for new players, since Monday. We've fixed it. If you created a character in the past 3 days, and your password doesn't work, please use the Forgot Password link to generate a new password for your character. Thanks.

We've also finally figured out the xp-loss bug, thanks to help from the players Aquarius and Qyvern, and we should have a fix for it by tomorrow (Thursday). Thanks again for your patience with this.

Update 04/03/2003 - there was STILL a bug in character creation, and also in the Forgot Password page, that was preventing passwords from being generated correctly. We've fixed the new problem, if you created a new character this week, you'll have to use the Forgot Password link to fix it.

The XP loss bug is still happening, and we're about half done with the fix for it.

Server Improving
30-MAR-03

Caius and I spent several hours today looking into the server problems, and we believe we've found and fixed the bugs. The server's stability should be somewhat improved now.

Server Instability
30-MAR-03

Our new server is going through some growing pains. Java seems to be crashing without notice several times a day. We're looking into why this is happening, and we'll keep you posted.

In other news, the WebStart Map Editor is now working again.

New Server
28-MAR-03

We're running the new server! It's 3x faster than our old one, so it can handle up to 300 players without server-side lag. We'll continue to work on optimizations so that we can get to 500 players on the server.

Thanks for your patience while it was down today. Have fun!

New Features, Bug Fixes
23-MAR-03

We've added a few new features, and fixed some bugs:

• The who command now accepts a prefix argument. You can type "who a" to see all the players online whose names begin with "a", for example.

• The cash machines accept "k" for 1000. So you can "deposit 10k" or "withdraw 20k".

• The dart spells can now hit large monsters, rather than passing through them.

• You can once again quit the PK guild.

• We changed the game not to print entered/left messages, since it was spamming everyone. The ethermuffs command currently has no use except to Wizards, but eventually we may add in the ability to know when guild members or other groups log in, so we'll leave the command in for now.

XP Loss
23-MAR-03

After many faithful years of service, our server is starting to have some issues. It frequently runs out of resources, and the game is unable to save files. When this happens, all maps become unavailable, and it stops saving your player data. You should log out immediately when this happens, and use the Show Who's Online link to see when the server reboots.

If you stay online and keep playing after maps become unavailable, then you'll lose any XP you earn, and we will be unable to restore it. We've got a new server ready to install, and hopefully it can go in sometime this week.

New Client
22-MAR-03

There's a new version of the game client (version 1.0) and the handheld clients (version 3.0). You need the latest version to connect to the game. We had to make some changes to the communication protocol to support writing native clients for the Windows and Mac platforms - a few people are working on them.

Lastest Forum
20-MAR-03

Pineapple has set up another player forum for us - this one is faster, doesn't have Annoying Popup Syndrome, and is very Wyvern-specific:

Feel free to sign up and discuss Wyvern! This board is set up particularly for Wyvern topics, and has an Auctions section, forums for each guild, Bug Reports and Suggestions, and other discussion groups. Pineapple obviously put a lot of thought into it, and it looks cool. Thanks!

Game Balance
18-MAR-03

Some newer players have been wondering: "what the heck is going on with the game balance?" I wrote a document back in November of 2001, almost a year and a half ago, explaining my vision how I want the game to be balanced:

This document is still surprisingly current. My vision hasn't changed since day 1. It should be clear, after reading it, why I made the enchanting change. The enchanted-armor problem is now officially the single biggest balance problem we've ever had, because I let it go on for too long, and now the high-score list is seriously skewed. But we've had other, similar problems in the past, and whenever we fix them, there's much wailing and gnashing of teeth from shortsighted players (and lots of compliments from the more visionary ones!)

Read it, learn it, memorize it if necessary. It's a roadmap for the changes we'll be making to Wyvern this year.

New Village - Amita
16-MAR-03

Arilou, the (newly-promoted) Senior Wizard, has opened a new village for newbies. The town is called Amita, and is south of New Verden. Look for it on the World Map. Enjoy, and congrats to Arilou!

Enchanting Complaints
16-MAR-03

There's been a fair bit of complaining about the new enchanting change, as expected. Here's the deal: the change ONLY affected players who were wearing player-enchanted armor. Monsters were actually made less powerful to help compensate, and now they're roughly as hard as they should have been all along.

About 250 players were affected by this change. To put this in perspective:

• Over 33,000 people have played Wyvern so far.
• More than 15,000 have been "active players" with lots of logins.
• About 3,500 people have been active in the past 30 days.
• Over 4,000 people have made it to level 2.
• Wyvern gets about 300 new characters created per day.

The problem is: 15,000 people are having trouble catching up with 250 people. We're considering various solutions to this problem. The solution might make the 250 folks unhappy, and some of them might even quit playing completely. That's their choice, and we'll miss them. However, the most important thing for Wyvern is to get the game balance right, for when we have hundreds of thousands of players. We hope you understand.

Enchanting
14-MAR-03

After some experimentation, we've significantly changed the way Enchanting works. You can once again enchant up to +8.

Until today, enchanting a piece of armor would give you extra protection for your entire body. So a +1 leather boots would protect your whole body against all damage types: fire, acid, frost, weapons... everything. It was a bit unbalancing, to say the least. Of course, everyone's used to it now, so it'll be painful to adjust, but that's life.

• increase the protection for your head against all damage types
• increase the helmet's hit points, so it can take more damage
• repair the helmet completely, up to its new max hit points
• increase the helmet's value slightly - not as much as before

Keep in mind that high-level monsters are going to be harder to kill as we continue to tune the game balance. But people have been complaining that high-level players are completely un-challenged by the game, and we're working to fix that. We're looking forward to a time when Demon Lords are really challenging again, even to a 30th-level player.

In other news:

• The Find Weakness skill has been made much more powerful - probably too powerful, but we'll see. After the first reboot, monsters with just a 5% chance of Critical Hits were doing massive damage to players. We've fixed it so most monsters can't do critical hits, but it should give you a feel for how useful the skill is now.

• The Jade Key wasn't supposed to unlock every chest, so we fixed it. (Nobody told me about this bug!) However, we think a Skeleton Key would be useful, so we'll make one - it just won't last forever.

High Scores
14-MAR-03

We've changed the High Score List score calculation. Your score (which determines your list ranking) is now calculated as:

(xp + gold) * qp

The old calculation was: xp + (qp*10000) + gold/5. So qp and gold didn't matter much. Now they do!

Note that gold is whatever you have in the bank, not what you're carrying in your inventory.

Quest Cheating
11-MAR-03

Questing is back in fashion, now that you have to solve quests in order to join guilds. Keep in mind that you are not allowed to get help on quests from others. If we catch you, we'll banish you.

The quests are all solveable. Just use your head, be a little patient, and you'll figure it out. You'll feel a lot better about it, too!

You can collaborate on quests with one other person. You must ask permission from a Wizard before teaming up with someone. You can only team up with someone else who hasn't solved the quest already. Only two people are allowed to work on a quest at a time, and you can only be part of one team at a time.

New Guilds
09-MAR-03

We've made extensive changes to the Wyvern Guild System. If you were in a Guild, you've been taken out of the guild, and your guild admission fee has been refunded into your bank account. You are welcome to join the new guilds, but you should read about them first, in the Guild Manual.

There are six guilds total now: Archers, Axemen, Cavemen, Mages, Monks, and Paladins. More will be coming soon!

Lots of people have been asking questions like "how many guild XP do I get for kills?" Your questions are all answered in the Guild Manual. It's really important that you read it, because deciding whether to join a guild is tricky now - they all have penalties in addition to their bonuses.

The three new guilds haven't been added to the World Map yet, so for now:

• Axemans Guild is in Varak
• Cavemans Guild is on an island west of Stensele
• Monks Guild is in Bandar Gaah

Archer Commands
27-FEB-03

We added "archerwho" and "archertell" commands for archers. There are also quivers of holding and quivers of great holding in the game: they should start showing up in shops today.

Server Outage
22-FEB-03

The server was down last night, and the game was unavailable for about 14 hours, since Rhialto was on vacation. Fortunately Caius was able to get it running again today -- thanks, Caius!

Wyvern Player Forum
18-FEB-03

OK, so Pineapple's forum appears to suffer from Annoying Popup Disease. You might want to try this one instead:

Wyvern Player Forum
16-FEB-03

Pineapple set up a Wyvern Discussion Board for us last year, and it's now open to the public. Feel free to log in and chat about Wyvern. Just keep in mind that our Wizards and the Cabochon Staff will probably not have time to monitor it much.

Here's the URL:

The usual rules apply: if we discover cheating, we'll banish the player involved.

Be sure to thank Pineapple for setting up the board!

Happy B-Lated B-Day!
13-FEB-03

Wyvern hit its 2-year anniversary of being online last week, on February 5th. The game had practically nothing - 90% of the entrances and buildings were closed. We only had 2 cities, 8 races, and no guilds. We've come a long way since then.

Imagine what Wyvern will be like in another 2 years!

New Zaurus Client
08-FEB-03

We've uploaded the first update to the Sharp Zaurus client since October 10th - version 2.2. It contains hundreds of new pictures, and a fix for a bug where new artwork from the server wasn't being used by the client.

There is also a new version of the PocketPC client available, with the same fixes.

Mouse Configuration
05-FEB-03

We've added a new mousebind command. It lets you change the behavior of your left mouse button, so you can get back the old behavior if you want it. Type mousebind both to turn on the old behavior, where the left button drops things and picks them up. You can read about the other options in the command reference.

New Client and Map Editor
05-FEB-03

There's a new version of the Wyvern Client, v0.7.2, which has all the latest game artwork from Legolas. It'll keep you from lagging so much. WebStart users should get it automatically.

If you don't, you can open Java Web Start from your Windows Start Menu, click on "Wyvern Game Client", and select "Remove Application" from the Application menu. Then it should re-download the new version for you. You can tell if you've got the new version if it says "Wyvern Client v0.7.2" in the title bar. If it just says "Wyvern", you have the old one.

There's also a new version of the Map Editor, version 1.2.2, which has animation support and a bunch of other new features. Try it out!

New Quest
02-FEB-03

Harph the Wiz has opened a new area, Noir, located on the mainland east of the Untrainer. It has a quest in it, worth 5 points, designed for players level 7-10. You can read about it in the Adventurers Guild or on the Quest Page.

Scary New Spell
01-FEB-03

There's a new Lore 15 spell, Stonewind, that fires a large cone of petrification at your enemies. Watch out for it - several of the toughest monsters in the game can cast it now, including the Marilith, Riagor, and Arch Dracolich. You'll see spellbooks for it start turning up in shops soon.

Mysteries of the Deep
27-JAN-03

Journey into the depths of the ocean to discover the mistakes of the Naga's Kingdom's past. Twists and turns await you as you uncover the mysteries of the fall of their underwater kingdom, and their ancient ancestors. Over time, you should learn what went awry, and what you need to do.

A new, entirely underwater quest has been released! You can find it in the Library in Vesimas. (aka Naga Town.) This quest is certainly like no other, as everything from the tricks, to the bosses, to the prizes were designed for a balanced party to figure out, destroy, and use, respectively. This is a quest for end treasure, not quest points, so there is no ban on working together. Just keep it out of shouts.

The area is designed for level 15+ for normal use, but the quest is certainly for levels 20 and up. You may find yourself in need of a naga guide, unless, of course, you are one!

Nagas Get Tough
26-JAN-03

We've added a 20th-level Naga form: the Hydra. It's much more powerful than the Dragon form. It has 5 heads with powerful bites. It can wear 5 amulets, 5 helmets, and one girdle. This should soon bring more Nagas into the Wyvern High Score List.

Inventory Changes
26-JAN-03

We've made a fairly major change to the game: you can now only carry 50 items in your top-level inventory. If you want to carry more than that, you have to put stuff in bags.

We did this for performance reasons. Lots of code in the game checks everything in your inventory, and many people were carrying hundreds of items. This should result in a big performance improvement for the game server.

If you had more than 50 items in your inventory, the extra items were put in a velvet bag at the top of your inventory. This change only affected about 350 players, so most of you won't have to worry about it.

We'll be making some changes to inventory management so that this change becomes less burdensome. We'll add "sell all from <bag>", and also other commands for manipulating things in bags.

New Map Editor
26-JAN-03

There's a New Map Editor, version 1.1, with lots of neat new features. Try it out!

Ships are Back
19-JAN-03

We've fixed ships: you can now sail them around to your heart's content. You can Apply to get out of ships now, just like you can with hot-air balloons. Also, check out the stunning new ship interiors by Legolas. You can even raise and lower the sails!

Forgotten Oak
16-JAN-03

One of our newest wizards, Arilou, has opened a new area called Forgotten Oak. It's on a small island off the eastern coast, near New Verden. Check out the World Map for directions.

Performance
14-JAN-03

We've made a bunch of improvements to game performance over the past 3 weeks, and now it's running pretty smoothly - we had 55 players online on Sunday, after 4 hours, and there was almost no lag. And we've got more planned - it will just keep getting better. Plus our new server should be here in mid-February, which will triple the performance, taking us up to at least 150 players at a time.

We had a temporary problem this morning with some random graphics showing up for frost wave and a few other spells, but it's been fixed.

Custom Images
12-JAN-03

We now support custom images for players in the Hall of Fame. If you're a Hall of Famer, i.e. level 25 or higher, you can draw a custom picture for yourself. It has to have N, S, E and W directions, and be in .GIF format. When you've got one, ask a Wizard to set it up for you.

Tell History
04-JAN-03

There's a new command, tells, that can show you tells you've received since you last logged in. Wizards can use it to see tells for other players.

Weapon and Armor Crafting
03-JAN-03

Janica has created two new trade skills, Weaponcrafting and Armorcrafting. Currently, the only place to buy supplies for these skills is Vesimas (also known as Naga Town.) It's in a shop called Smithing Supplies. Be sure to read the signs in the building, as they contain important instructions!

New Map Editor
03-JAN-03

We've just released Map Editor version 1.0. It has several major new features, including:

• we've added real scrollbars
• there's multi-level Undo and Redo
• you can see the lighting model in dark maps
• the Appearance editor now works properly
• you can now edit properties on items in bags and monster inventories
• there are new keyboard shortcuts for many operations
• you can now load maps that were corrupted by older versions of the editor

New Newbie Village
02-JAN-03

Happy New Year! Legolas has created an entirely new Newbie Village named Davos. You can find it on the west side of New Verden, near the training towers. Enjoy!

Wyvern IRC Channel
24-DEC-02

Sarysa has started an IRC channel for Wyvern players to chat about anything, usually when the game is down. Server: irc.gamesnet.net Channel: #wyvern. If you don't have an IRC client, use their Java IRC client and type /join #wyvern after connecting.

Server Outage
23-DEC-02

We had a major server failure over the weekend, and the game was unavailable for about 24 hours. Fortunately we were able to get it running again today, and the game should be working smoothly through the holidays!

Crime Stats
15-DEC-02

We've added crimelist and criminal commands so you can check your criminal record.

Misc News
06-DEC-02

We're still making progress on the performance front. We expect to be able to support at least 150 players per server by mid-January.

Also: there's a new command, ethermuffs, that lets you ignore messages for people entering and leaving the game.

New Game Client
25-NOV-02

We've uploaded a new version of the client, 0.7.1, which incorporates all the latest artwork. It should help if you were lagging in Blackrose City or any other areas with new images. QuickStart and WebStart users will get it automatically.

Wyvern Wins Big!
25-NOV-02

Wyvern has received a prestigious award: we were the Grand Prize winner in the Insignia JPDA 2002 Developers Competition with our new Wyvern Handheld Client.

We were announced at Comdex last Wednesday, and we're mentioned prominently in this press release. We're excited and proud to have won the grand prize, and we're hoping that next year will be a big year for Wyvern on handheld devices.

On the performance front, we had 59 players online on Sunday. We had a few lag bursts, but we're making definite progress. By the end of the year we should be able to support 75 to 80 players on one server comfortably - and twice that many for handheld clients!

Wyvern Performance
17-NOV-02

We're still working on performance improvements. We're hoping to be able to support 50 players without much lag, although it could take a month or two before we get there.

We turned off animation today to see how well it helps. For the next week or so, we're going to have no animation timers - that means firewalls, fires, animated armor, monsters, and other animated objects won't animate. If it's a big help, we may reduce the number of animations in the game so we can support more players.

Wyvern Getting Popular
10-NOV-02

We saw 47 players online today - a new record! Wyvern is currently configured to handle a maximum of 50 players on at a time. If there are 50 players online, you will be asked to try again later. Keep trying, though, because players quit the game frequently.

We're working on some performance enhancements so that there isn't as much lag when there are 50 players online.

In other news, we had 1000 new players created in the past week. We currently have about 14,000 player accounts. About 22,000 people have tried Wyvern at least once. We're going to start purging inactive player accounts more aggressively, so we can keep the accounts manageable.

New Quests
03-NOV-02

Janica the Senior Wiz has provided three exciting new Newbie Quest Areas. One is near Tornaum Castle, one is on the east side of New Verden village, and one is near the Dwarven city of Varak. Enjoy!

Side Scroller
31-OCT-02

Only one person has solved Kiz's Side Scroller quest, so we're bumping it up to 20 points. Good luck!

Halloween Live Quest
30-OCT-02

The Wizards are brewing up a special Halloween Live Quest. It should get started around 6:00pm PST on October 31st.

New Quest
20-OCT-02

Stonewing has opened the Hall of Mages quest in Fae Wyston. You can read about it in the Adventurers Guild. Good luck!

Halflings Again
14-OCT-02

We've changed the halfling "show" command to "unhide", since "show" was already taken for something else.

(16 OCT) - About 50 new halflings didn't have their hide/unhide commands, so we fixed that as well.

Zoo Quest
10-OCT-02

Legolas has created a new Zoo, along the King's Road between New Verden and Alaria. There's a 5-point quest there, which you can read about in the Adventurers Guild.

Halfling Changes
09-OCT-02

We've added "show" and "hide" commands for halflings. Halflings used to be invisible all the time, but it made it hard to deal with other players, so now they can toggle it on and off. Type "hide" to turn invisible, and "show" to become visible.

We also gave halflings 4 skill points per level. It was supposed to be like this before, but there was a bug in the code. So your halfling character should have more skill points if you're higher than first level.

Casinos!
09-OCT-02

Janica has opened a brand-new Casino Island. It's northeast of Sherwood and southwest of Nagatown. It offers fabulous prizes and a fancy gift shop. Go spend the weekend there and blow a few thousand platinum!

Movement Changes
05-OCT-02

We made some changes to the movement code to simplify it, and it has introduced a few new bugs. For one thing, players can now move on top of each other on buildings. We're working on fixes - please be patient while we get this working! Thanks much, Rhialto.

Air Balloons
04-OCT-02

Janica the Senior Wiz has created Hot Air Balloons. There are several of them scattered throughout the world map. You can use them to get around faster. Apply them to start, and apply them again to land them.

Wyvern Makes Alpha!
03-OCT-02

Wyvern now supports true transparency, also known (in graphics) as an alpha channel. You'll see the change immediately in the lighting model and with invisible monsters. This requires a new client, version 0.7.0, so you'll need to download it.

Boats
28-SEP-02

We've changed the way boats work (including rafts):

• after you apply the boat, you start sailing immediately
• you can move by clicking with the mouse or using the keyboard
• to get out, just tap on the land immediately next to the boat

There is a bug in the "out" command for boats that we're working on fixing. For now, click to get out of them.

Create-Character Problem
27-SEP-02

The hit points and spell points for Rakshasas created in the past week were messed up from a bug in the new create-character web page. We've fixed them all - it affected about 50 players, so if you're a new Rakshasa, you'll notice your HP and SP are now different (and correct!) We also had a problem with wood elves, and that one may not be completely fixed yet. If you are experiencing problems with your new character, please let us know.

New PocketPC Client
22-SEP-02

We're pleased to announce that Wyvern can now be played on the HP/Compaq iPAQ PocketPC. This represents another step forward for Wyvern, with thousands of PocketPC users now able to connect to the game.

Please visit our Wyvern Handheld Client page to read about it or download it.

Character Creation
22-SEP-02

We changed the way you create characters for Wyvern. It now all happens on the Create a Character web page. You no longer go to a special map to choose your character, nor are you ever a ghost.

We did this because we've had thousands of people log into the game and then never get past the create-character map. This should hopefully make it easier for people to get started. We'll also be working on better training halls and tutorials.

Unfortunately, because of the changes, we had to purge 1200 characters that had been created but never chosen a race. If you created a character but haven't logged in yet, you'll have to recreate the character using the new web page.

Note: the website instructions for creating your character are now all wrong. We'll update them as soon as possible!

New Zaurus Client
15-SEP-02

There's a new Zaurus Client available. It has all the latest artwork, fixes many memory issues, and adds a few new UI features to make it more playable. We've playtested it extensively and it's working very well.

New Map Editor
15-SEP-02

There's a new Map Editor, version 0.5.4, that should fix the map-corruption problems we were seeing with 0.5.2. However, any maps that you saved with 0.5.2 are now broken, and 0.5.4 won't fix them. (It just won't break any new maps.) If you have a map that you desperately need fixing up, you can send it to wyvern@cabochon.com and we'll fix it for you.

Note: you have to remove your old installation completely or this upgrade won't work.

Thief Skills
14-SEP-02

We've changed the Lockpicking skill so that you can go up to level 20 in the skill. There are now locked chests and doors in the game with different difficulty levels, and your skill matters. We also enhanced the Knock and Wizard Lock spells to work better if you have high Mind (Knock) or Earth (Wizard Lock) skill.

IMPORTANT NOTE: - you can apply chests, bags and crates to get everything out of them. So getting treasure is absolutely no different than it was before, unless it's in a locked chest. Only a small percentage of all containers are locked chests.

We're working on a new Traps skill (detect/disarm). When it's done, we'll probably open the Thieves Guild.

Monstrous News
12-SEP-02

Monsters can now open doors and smash through earth walls. We didn't quite go so far as to make them pull levers... yet.

Another change: moving into an unlocked door now opens it for you automatically. Should help with moving around a bit, although it will take some getting used to.

Rakshasa Harmya
12-SEP-02

Legolas, map-maker extraordinaire, has done it again - his new town, Rakshasa Harmya, is now open to the public. It's just south of the Ziggurat on the World Map. There's a teleporter to it in the Minath Department of Transportation. We'll update the World Map with its location soon.

Shouting Abuses
11-SEP-02

We've just banished 5 players for grossly abusing the shout filter and shouting extreme profanities. Congratulations to Icedkid, Niobi, Sistermoon, Dragonmage and Humanoid for being dumb enough to break the rules so blatantly.

We apologize to all the players who were online and offended by their shouting. Thank you for reporting the abuses. We hope you continue to play the game in spite of the lack of maturity and intelligence displayed by these (ex-)players.

Postal Service
11-SEP-02

The Post Offices are now open in Alaria and Minath Elion. You can send mail to other players and read your mail there. We've also added a sell all command, which sells anything that's not kept, worn, or wielded.

There's a new Change Log that shows all the bug fixes we've done recently. There are some good ones in there, such as the mana-shield death bug, the mana-shield fire-trap bug, and the naga/cobra amulet bug.

We've changed the way Strength works - you can read about it in the change log.

A Different Kind of Quest
07-SEP-02

Kiz's Side-Scroller Quest is now open to the public. You can read about it in the Adventurers Guild. Good luck!

New Rules
04-SEP-02

The Rules have been updated to include a new rule: don't create traps, hostile monsters, or other hazards in public areas. You will now be banished immediately for this if you do it, and we have logs, so you are guaranteed to get caught. Just don't do it.

Mages Guild Changes
04-SEP-02

We've changed the Wizard Hat and Wizard Robe so that you can only wear them if you're in the Mages Guild. You can find them (in all sizes) in the Mages Guild Shop. If you bought one you can't use, and you need a refund, ask Rhialto. Non-Guild members can use the Sokoban versions, though.

We're going to change the Arts so you can only train in them if you're a Mages Guild member - Evocation, Incantation, Conjuration, and Enchantment. You'll get your skill points in them untrained for free (if you're not in the Guild).

Sokoban Quest
01-SEP-02

We've reopened the Tower of Sokoban, and now it's a 50-point quest. You get one quest point per level. There are also very fancy prizes for every 10 levels you solve. Go to the tower (in Alaria) to read more about it.

More news: you can now undo your last push by typing "undo". You can see what level you're on by typing "level". And you can restart a level by simply typing "out".

PK Guild Enhancements
31-AUG-02

We've made a few changes to help the PK Guild:

• when spells hit you, you can now see exactly whose spell it is and get normal damage messages from it
• the Destruction spell now hurts other guildmembers
• killing yourself no longer affects your PK stats

Dodge Change
30-AUG-02

We've changed the Dodge skill so it's capped at twice your level. That includes all your dodge, including magical bonuses. Even if it says your dodge is 60, if your level is 17, it's really only 34 (i.e., twice 17).

This is a precursor to changing all skills so they max out at twice your level, including bonuses. When we make the final changes, your skills will be shown correctly in your skills list, so you won't have to guess what the "real" values are.

PK Guild is open!
30-AUG-02

We've finally opened the long-awaited Player Killers Guild. You should read about it before you join.

In other news, Rakshasas have all been expelled from the Paladins Guild, and refunded 100,000 gold coins. The Elders of the Guild decided that they didn't want to accept demonic beings that can't wield swords. I can't say I blame them.

In other other news, Paladins must now maintain their Good alignment, or they'll lose their skills. If they become Evil enough, they get expelled from the guild.

New Cities
27-AUG-02

We've opened three brand-new cities: Blackrose, Eldamar, and Sythryn. They were created by the Wizards Avalon, Airick, and Ender, respectively. Legolas has updated the World Map with their locations. Congrats to all three Wizards, who've worked so hard on their great new areas!

Player Reset
25-AUG-02

There was a bug for the past 20 hours or so where no monsters were casting spells. Nobody saw fit to report the bug, and everyone exploited it by doing quests and getting loot, so we've reset all the players to a backup from Saturday 8/24. Anything you got from 3:00pm Saturday to 3:00pm today is gone now. Next time a major bug like this occurs, mail wyvern@cabochon.com.

Cult of Aquator
24-AUG-02

Janica has created a very large, very difficult new quest called Cult of Aquator. It's located in Nagatown - check the World Map if you don't know where that is. You can read about the quest in the Newbie Village Adventurers Guild.

New Game Client
24-AUG-02

There's a new game client (0.6.0) that's required to play the game. QuickStart and WebStart users should get it automatically, but QuickStart users may have to restart their browser first.

Player Purge
19-AUG-02

We deleted over 8,000 player files from people who'd never logged in and chosen a race. Lots of names you always wanted are now available. Enjoy!

WebStart - Fixed
19-AUG-02

The Java WebStart version of the game had a permissions problem yesterday, but it's fixed now. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Player-to-Player Transfers
15-AUG-02

We've made some clarifications on the rules for giving stuff from player to player.

Spellcasting Change
11-AUG-02

We've changed the game so that spells no longer hurt other players unless you're in a playerkilling area. This should help with Live Quests and other group activities, since you don't have to worry about frying your companions.

Keep in mind that your own spells still hurt you, though.

Arrows and bolts don't hurt other players now, either, except (again) in PK areas.

In other news, we've changed it so you can't cast hundreds of fireballs, blizzards, firefrosts, and so on. Ball spells are limited by your skill - you can have up to 5 or 6 of them active at a time, depending on your level in the appropriate skill. This was to help reduce lag.

Atmospheres
11-AUG-02

Rakshasas now have several new Rakshasa-only atmospheres. You can see them by typing the "cat" command.

Also, you can now see all the built-in game atmospheres using the atmospheres command.

Finally, if you perform an atmosphere on yourself, the messages are now correct - for example, "Fred pats himself on the head."

New Newbie Village
10-AUG-02

Legolas, map-maker extraordinaire, has done it again. He's completely redesigned the Newbie Village. It's got a lot of new artwork, so there's a new game client (0.5.2) with the latest and greatest in it.

New Map Editor
03-AUG-02

Note: We're up to 0.4.2 now, as of August 10th. All older versions have really nasty bugs in them, so make sure you are using 0.4.2 or later before editing/creating any maps.

Rakshasas are here!
26-JUL-02

Note: we found a bug in the Unarmed Combat skill tonight - it's never really worked properly, but the bug has been fixed. It now increases your attack speed, accuracy and damage when you're not wielding a weapon. Should help for Nagas and Rakshasas.

New Area
26-JUL-02

In other news, we've moved the Paladins Guild to Minath Elion.

In other other news, we've changed the XP calculations for spellcasting monsters. The more spells they cast, the more XP you get for them. A lich, for example, used to give you 750 xp, but now you'll get over 3000. Hopefully this will balance out those nasty monsters you never liked fighting before.

A New Milestone
25-JUL-02

Vedui!
21-JUL-02

Map Claiming
20-JUL-02

There are still some areas that haven't been made claimable yet, including random dungeons, the Mountain King area, Drowtown and Pixietown. They'll be fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, there's no claiming those areas.

There are probably still bugs in map claiming. Please report any bugs you think you've found.

There's a new Map Editor (0.3.6) with a few minor fixes, as well as support for wizard terrain borders. There's also a new game client (0.5.0) with the wizard artwork bundled in, so you won't lag when you go to those areas.

Fixed Mana
19-JUL-02

Mana Shield Changes
17-JUL-02

Giants Are Tougher
17-JUL-02

Player File Corruption
17-JUL-02

A Change of Pace
15-JUL-02

Lots of Changes
14-JUL-02

• There are at least ten new artifact weapons, including several Weapons of Slaying (Dragonbane, Demonbane, and so on).
• We're almost done with a new race of cat people. All we're waiting on is the artwork - all the coding is finished.
• We now have unarmed combat, a new skill. The melee skill will no longer work for non-weapon combat - you have to train in Unarmed Combat to punch harder and faster.
• We added level restrictions for many types of armor, to prevent newbies from taking undue advantage of them.
• You can no longer exit Newbie Village through the gatehouse until you're 2nd level, to cut down on newbie confusion.
• Numerous other bug fixes and features, mostly minor.

Eye of the Dragon
27-JUN-02

Levitation Has Changed
26-JUN-02

Sorry for not posting this note earlier - everyone thought the game was lagging today. *sigh*

Pixie Town Opens
25-JUN-02

Hall of Fame
24-JUN-02

Server Speedup
23-JUN-02

New Map Editor
22-JUN-02

Schweaty's Slugfest
16-JUN-02

Club Skill for Stone Giants
16-JUN-02

Weapon Skills
15-JUN-02

Retire Your Old Character
15-JUN-02

Cleaning Up Shops
14-JUN-02

Ancient News Archives