This is a multi-purpose blog. First I'll announce that the ghost/zombie, Stramineus, and Joe's Halloween items will be disappearing on the 10th. Hunt those ghosts while you can!

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Next, some small updates/bug fixes.

The padding on forum posts was bugged after the anonymous forum update. I fixed that (also added 10 px padding on top of forum posts, up from the 5px before. I think it looks nicer).

I added the active skills on a drone run on mouseover of the drones module and on the drone bays page.

I buffed the drone skill Evasion, so that it rolls Reliability * 3 instead of 2. With 25 Reliability, you'd have a 75% chance of evading danger, up from 50%. It was one of the least used skills, so hopefully this encourages more players to try it. Heavy Forcefield and Nanobot Repairs are also underused, but not sure how to go about buffing them.

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Finally, everybody go sign up in Wolf's Werewolves thread in Games Forum. It'll be fun, I promise.

So, the latest update contains a few bug fixes, and 1 change to a long standing system.

There was a PvP bug that gave fatal errors. If you do still encounter this, please let us know.
Another bug fix was regarding backlog; you should be getting those normally now.

The real meat for this update is the Crystal Removal system.
With the old system, you either lost the Crystal, lost 1 item level, or paid 5,000 Platinum to save both.
With the new system, you ALWAYS get the Crystal back. Instead of losing an entire level, you lose a set amount of item XP based on the type of Crystal. You can still pay some Platinum to save that XP, though it is far less now.

The numbers are as follows:
Crystal Type ------------------ XP Lost ---------- Platinum Cost
Small Crystal -------------------- 250 ------------------ 25
Medium Crystal ----------------- 500 ------------------ 50
Large Crystal ------------------- 1000 ---------------- 100
Giant Crystal ------------------- 2000 ---------------- 200
Perfect Crystal ----------------- 4000 ---------------- 400
Abyss Crystal Fragment ------ 1000 ---------------- 100
Fractured Abyss Crystal ------ 2000 ---------------- 200
Unrefined Abyss Crystal ----- 4000 ---------------- 400
Abyss Crystal ------------------ 5000 ---------------- 500
Cabrusion Crystal ------------- 5000 ---------------- 500
Amulet Crystal ---------------- 5000 ---------------- 500
Prime Crystal ------------------ 3000 --------------- 300
Aeon Crystal ------------------ 3000 ---------------- 300

Hopefully, with this change, you won't be so afraid to try out different builds.
Feel free to discuss this change, and let us know what you think.

Ok, this update has a few things in it.
Some minor, some not so.

Minor:
- Forum Filter should be working properly now for all Posts
- WL chat now has proper website links
- WL chat and SC history links now redirect you to new tab instead of the current one
- Platinum boosts should show proper time left again
- If a prerequisite for an ability is not purchasable, but you have maxed said ability, it will show up as colored in the ability shop; else, it will show up as ???


Not so minor:
- A new quest given by Sythe
-- There are 20 unique dialogue lines
-- There are actually 7 branches in total
-- Most of you can't see all of those; I'll post them all somewhere next week once people have tinkered with it a bit


Kind of Major:
- Prerequisites for Radiance has been changed
-- It was a Combat ability; now a Warfare ability
-- It's previous prerequisites were Combat Study, Avatar Study, Quick Attack, Aimed Attack, Take Cover
-- It's new prerequisites are Warfare Study, Avatar Study, Personal Shield
-- If you already have it purchased, you can still train it/use it (it only affects the ability to purchase it)

- A new ability: Personal Shield
-- It is essentially Radiance, but it is dispelled after 1 hit
-- It absorbs any and all damage just 1 time, and currently only affects sources coming from other players
-- You can move while having it turned on
-- Yes, you can actually clear Guards with it on
-- Leaving the WLs dispels it
-- It is on a 5 minute cooldown
-- If you an Avatar, you can bypass the cooldown at the cost of 20 Focus by using "/shield me"
-- And yes, it only requires 20 Ability Points


This ability is only the first phase of a much longer plan.
It may seem kind of odd on its own, but it might have its uses before the whole thing comes together.

If you come across anything weird regarding any of these things, drop me a PM.
But if you PM some stupid complaint or something that is not constructive, I'm frogging you.

A small update went live today. Here are the patch notes:

Additions:

1) Neon Paint added to the plat store. It is available for use on all current avatar weapons as well as the SWAT Shield and 3 Section Staff.

Bug Fixes:

1) Recipes with Optional Items will now have the correct number of slots listed.

2) Working jobs during a 2x event would grant you pay of the level above your current, unless you had the job maxed out. This has been fixed.

3) 100 daily tokens were being handed out to players without any card, this has been reduced back to 50.

4) If a player had above 50 messages in their inbox because of the upgraded inbox plat item, they could not be invited to clans as it would say their inbox is full. This has been fixed.

Thanks,
Bongo.