Due to recent errors with the drop rates of certain items the following changes are going to occur.

If you have an Void Axe, Core Staff, Core Shield or Abyss Crystal with an ID from 8249517 to 8267879 then it is going to become 'tainted'. This will change the name and artwork of the item slightly and reduce its trades to 0.

If said item was on the market it will be removed and placed in your void for collection. This change will occur for 28 x Abyss Crystals, 28 x Core Sta(ves?), 22 x Core Shields and 8 x Void Axes. If your item was missed while you were under the effects of double luck and have a non-tainted item, send in a ticket to let us know.

Double Gains is live! It will be live till Sunday 11:59PM EST.

Also, the Shadow Facility is back... and so am I! Did you miss me?

Okay got fair ground to cover here (and this isn't even all of it lol):

1. Shadow Facility's back. It comes with 3 new interesting "operations". Unfortunately you need to power up the Forge to get those operations running smoothly again. I'll post more soon once 'Alpha Prime' has gotten one of them going.

2. Contributor Rewards for the Phoenix Key parts have been finally handed out. Enjoy your sacks! NOTE: Those who received the Double Pay and Double Energy books - these do not stack during double gains weekend. If you have already used it, do not worry - I will recompensate the days lost for you after the double gains weekend.

3. New mid-70s NPC - X-Corp Droids. They seem pretty chill no? Don't worry.. more to come. Sentries have been found occasionally invading in the WL. Beware of them!

4. Joe's Merchandise now offers Phoenix Key exchange! Bye bye Path Key parts (and good riddance)!

5. Boons are now being awarded. These are special points you get for being an active player. You can work towards getting boons by participating in nearly every single part of the game. More on this sometime next week when the Boon Shop is finalized

6. Equippable items now have a new quality level - level 6! What is it called? Level up to find out. Does it have any use? Level up the Forge to find out!

Enjoy this weekend and don't worry, y'all ain't rid of me yet!

A bunch of new little and big things are in today..
1. New Jobs:
a) Crystal Mining
b) X-Corp Research Lab

Each of these jobs pay more than the previous one and also drop some cool items. I hear OG Mining also drops something. With a fair number of dangerous jobs, I wonder if there's an item that can make things.. less dangerous?

2. 3 New Status Effects - these are higher tiers of the existing ones as some of you may have seen on dev. You get them by consuming a Large Power Cell, which you can get.. I wonder where?

3. Cow Bell (decreases training time for currently-training ability by 1 hour) sold for 160 wfps.

4. New item in Casino Shop for all you 1337 hackers out there.

5. 110 Badge and Banner

6. The Honing Combat Log messages have been abridged ever so slightly. If you still have a broken combat log history from it later on, PM me and I'll take care of it.

7. New Medic ability category. Medic Study has been unlocked for you if your level is greater than or equal to 20. Go to Information > Abilities to train it and then go ahead and buy/train the (currently sole) ability, Healing Touch, within the Medic category from the Hall of Knowledge. You can read the description of Healing Touch to learn more but it let's you heal a fellow gang member on the same square at the cost of focus (so avs only can unlock it for now - lowbies, don't worry we haven't forgotten about your potential to be medics!). Using /heal will also generate a new type of Combat Log message for the which can be toggled on/off under Template Control (last option - Incoming Targeting Ability).

Armor/Weapon Honing abilities now give +3 hourly bonus with an additional +3 at max level. However, they now come with an inactivity decay. So for every day you aren't logged in since your last login, you will receive a -8 to your hourly bonus. Ability levels 4 and 5 get a 1 and 2 day grace period respectively. They also now give a flat +1 xp per armor/weapon hit in all PVP/PVE.

You can see here (link) but here's what it looks like for someone with a maxed honing ability to go from level 1 to level 5 with an item:

XP/hour = 18 | 156.25 days at Level 5.
(281.25 days for avg daily [no ability])
(100.45 days for average daily active attacker)
(96.98 days for average daily active attacker with ability and +1 WL pvp xp)

[Day 1] + 432 | ItemXP = 432 (Lv. 1 )
[Day 2] + 432 | ItemXP = 864 (Lv. 1 )
[Day 3] + 432 | ItemXP = 1296 (Lv. 1 )
[Day 4] + 240 | ItemXP = 1536 (Lv. 1 )
[Day 5] + 48 | ItemXP = 1584 (Lv. 1 )
[Day 6] + 0 | ItemXP = 1584 (Lv. 1 )

You will now receive a Combat Log message regarding your hourly gains. The Status Effects module now only shows when you have any status effects active. Also, status effects have been centered... you're welcome.