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Dark Age of Camelot

Version 1.09 Release Notes

September 14, 2001

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SOME BRIEF NOTES

We are letting in about 500 people a day into beta. Our bandwidth has been
substantially upgraded, which allows many more people to download at once. So,
far, many of the people who have been invited have not created accounts, which
is disappointing, but we'll keep inviting until we have enough players online at
once to do full load testing.

We are, of course, completely devastated by the losses felt by so many people in
the last few days. Our hearts and thoughts go out to all those affected by these
terrible events. It's times like these that show how insignificant our own
problems (deadlines, game features, games in general) really are.

HELP SYSTEM

Please note that you can access a help window in game that will give you some
basic information. This help system will be expanded greatly over the next week
to become more full featured. To access help, make sure that "Display Help" in
your keyboard settings is set (default should be F1, but this may not work,
depending on when your account was created). In the future (although not
currently), you will be able to use the "/help" command to display the help
system.

BUG FIXES AND OTHER THINGS

- Blinking spell effect icons have been tamed. They should work as advertised
now.
- Shift-up arrow now works (no longer repeats '/').
- Players with low frame rates in cities should no longer fall through floors.
- Some trees in Myrkwood had bad textures on them. These have been fixed.

SIEGE WARFARE

Siege weapons are now in. They are intended to be used while trying to take over
an enemy's outpost or relic keep. Siege weapons are made by crafters who use the
new Siegecrafting skill (more information on that in the crafting section of
these release notes).

There are three different types of siege weapons: the ballista, the battering
ram, and the catapult.

Ballista: used to take out enemy siege weapons from a distance

Catapult: used to do area effect damage to enemy players, doors, siege
equipment, although it is less accurate

Battering Ram: used to take down gates, doors, or enemy siege equipment.
Extremely short range.

Once you have acquired a "siege weapon" (via the siegecraft skill, see below),
use "/control" to assume control of it. Anyone who has the siegecraft crafting
skill will be able to assume control of a siege engine. In the future,
additional classes will have this ability as well. Only one person can be in
control of a siege weapon at a time.

Once you have assumed control, a window will be displayed with siege engine
options on it:

Aim

To aim a ballista or battering ram, first select the target. In the case of a
battering ram, usually a door is selected. If it is a ballista, another siege
weapon is usually selected. In the case of a catapult, use the area targeting
key (F5 by default) to select the area that you want to damage. Then click the
"Aim" button. This locks the siege weapon on to the target.

Arm

Use this button to put the siege weapon in the "ready to fire" position. This
could take anywhere from 15-30 seconds, depending on the siege weapon.

Load

For Ballistas and Catapults, you must load appropriate ammo before firing. You
do this by first directly dropping ammo from your inventory onto the siege
weapon, then selecting the ammo you wish to fire out of the list of ammo in the
siege control window and clicking the "load" button. Battering Rams do not
require ammo.

Fire

Fires the siege weapon.

SIEGECRAFTING

An early version of Siegecraft is in this version. Rams, Ballistae, and
Catapults may be built using the Siegecraft skill, all are difficulty 1 recipes
for now, so anyone who has joined a Craft Order may make them.

To make a ram, approach close to a Door and have Cladding, 2 Swing Harnesses, a
Ram Beak, and 1250 pieces of Elm wood. Bring up your Siegecraft menu and select
the Small Ram.

To make a Ballista, have a Gimbal, 2 Torsion Cables, Spring Arms, and 1500
pieces of Elm wood.

To make a Catapult, you need a Bucket, Arm Cushion, Winding Crank,
Counterweight, Pivot, and 2400 pieces of Elm wood.

For now all ingredients and ammo may be purchased from a temporary Merchant NPC
in the Merchant Keeps near the edge of the Frontier, eventually all ingredients
will be crafted (by trades other than Siegecraft). Please note that several
people will be needed to carry the pieces, and they must all be transferred to
the player assembling the siege engine and then dropped by him within 10 feet of
the location he will be building the engine. At this time they will be under
normal decay timers, so you will need to move quickly, we will be finding a
better solution to the decay issue in the near future.

WORLD NOTES

- New Dungeon. Nisse's Lair: Low level (7-15) Midgard dungeon. The monsters
only drop coin treasure for now. The entrance can be found in the East Svealand
zone.

OBJECT NOTES

There are now 38 available dye colors, including all your favorites. In general
the colors are divided into shades with the deepest and most vibrant of the
colors being the most expensive. There are also some off shades of a few colors
that are in. There is now a decent selection for everyone of all levels. This
is just a basic guideline and in no way a hard fast rule. Given, you have enough
money you can buy any of these regardless of level. These initial prices are
subject to change, please give feed back if the dye costs are not inline with
the current price points. Please post all inputs and suggestions in the item
discussion area on the beta boards. Thanks!

Here are the price points,

1sp dyes of these colors should be purchasable by all.
5sp these should become affordable around level 10.
25sp these should become affordable around level 20.
1.25gp these should become affordable around level around level 30
6gp these should become affordable around level 40.
30gp these are the most vibrant colors in the game.

Here is a list of the color groups:

6 blue
3 turquoise
4 teal
6 red
5 purple
4 green
3 brown
3 gray
3 orange
3 yellow