Crimson Hellfire Alliance

Epic Book 8

The plans of Gorothúl, sorcerer of Dol Guldur, begin to be made clear as ancient evils stir again in the depths of Khazad-dûm. Small fellowships must form to combat this emerging threat before the hopes of the Iron Garrison and the Elves of Lothlórien are ended by the darkness. The story of The Mines of Moria continues with new quests and challenges!

Instance and Raid Changes Coming in Book 8

New instances and raids:
- The Mirror Halls of Lumul-nar - a three-man instance located in Zirak-zigil (contains a hard mode)
- The Water Wheels: Nala-Dum - another three-man level 60 instance located in the Flooded Deeps (contains a hard mode)
- Halls of Crafting - a six-man instance located next to the entrances of the Forges of Khazad-Dum and Fil Ghashan (contains a hard mode)
- Dar Narbugud - a twelve-person raid that contains 6 bosses with First Age Legendary Item token drops and the new Tier 2 class set
- A ton of new quests for the instances and raids - opportunities to gain Galadhrim reputation, Rare Drops, and Legendary Item XP.
Changes to existing raids:
- The Vile Maw is now a little bit easier than the 2.0 current version. Think of it as new version 1.5 with a slower transition from stage 2 to 3, slower pile-ups of corruptions, etc.
- The Vile Maw and Turtle Raids can now be run 2 times a week
- Vile Maw gloom went down to 140 from 150. This will allow people to fight in 30 gloom when using the full radiance set
- Hope buffs from Helegrod and The Rift have become a Radiance Buff that lasts 3 hours even if you disconnect or log out of the game. These buffs have been also been adjusted from +3 Hope to +10 Radiance.
Changes to Item drops for instances and raids:

All First Age Legendary Items are now dropping only in raids via a token system. We’ll get into the hows and whys of this system but suffice it to say, you now can pick your First Age once you get enough tokens instead of hoping the random number gods are in your favor
All 3 Moria raids will be dropping First Age tokens at varying rates — it is up to you to figure out where the best place to get tokens is!
A new barter system for the hard modes of the 3 new non-raid instances. Every player will be able to loot 1 barter token from the chests if they achieved hard mode and will be able to collect and trade these tokens in for a +15 radiance piece of a 3-piece set or Legendary Item XP tokens
All of the previous instances are dropping more Second Age items per instance!
Tier 2 class set is now a 5-set bonus max rather than a 6-set bonus max so that players can now mix and match that sixth piece to their heart’s content.

First age Legendary item news for Book 8

There is no longer a chance to receive First-age items.
There is no longer a chance to receive Tier 4 Runics.
The Heritage Runes have significantly increased in value.
- The lowest value is now 75k.
- The highest value is now 250k.
There is now a chance to receive Level 58 and Level 59 Second-age items (you can still get Level 60 Second-age items as well).
The odds have been tweaked, the most significant of which is that there's now a slightly higher chance of receiving a Second-age item, but a lower chance of that Second-age being Level 60 (due to the inclusion of Level 58 and 59 Second-age items).
The costs of the gift boxes have been significantly reduced: they now cost 15G 30S.
The descriptions of the gift boxes have been changed to more accurately reflect the potential rewards.
The gift boxes are no longer class restricted for those who mistakenly purchased the wrong box.
Please note that there will be no compensation for those who have already purchased a gift box: when you opened that gift box you had a chance to get a Level 60 First-age item.

Explanation of Changes: The gift boxes have been changed from a high-risk / high-reward design to a more friendly middle-ground design. The high-end rewards have either been removed (First-age) or had their chances reduced (Level 60 Second-age), while the low-end rewards have either been removed (15k Heritage Rune, Tier 4 Runics) or increased (250k Heritage Runes are now available). Because the high-end rewards have been removed/reduced, the cost of the giftboxes has been reduced as well.

First Age Legendary Items

First Ages are now dropped via a barter system.Each raid now drops barter tokens that can be saved up to use to trade for the First Age item of your choice. Vile Maw, Strange Happenings, and Dar Narbugud will all drop multiple tokens. Go visit the barter traders at the Hythe docks to see all the possibilities.

Level 59 First Age's will cost 4 tokens
Level 60 First Age's will cost 6 tokens

Currently First Age Legendary items are Bind on Acquire on Bullroarer. This change will be reverted and will not go live when Book 8 ships.

Chapter 7 Feature - Origins

When Blix and the gang returned from the celebration summit a month or so ago, as usual he had his Big List O' Stuff comprised of the attendees comments, top issues and suggestions about the game.

One of the things on that list pointed out the lack of species differentiation. It just so happened that this was something I had personally been thinking about, and I wasn't happy with the state of it either. So I proposed a plan, he concurred with it and he carved out some time for me to revisit species traits.

So what follows is a comprehensive look at what's coming very soon:

Species Traits

In order to further differentiate species a number of new special abilities, skill bonuses and base statistic modifiers have been added.

-All species have received a combat oriented special ability. The reuse time these abilities are currently ten minutes.
-All species have received a trader specialization, if they lacked one previously.
-All species have received a non-trader bonus or specialization, if they lacked one previously.
-All species have received an additional 200 points worth of stat mods. This is in addition to class specific base stat mods, which have also changed from the standard across the board +90's at level 90. These are discussed below the upcoming section.

--Human Species Traits

Human Authority: You take charge of the situation granting your group mates and you a damage bonus.

+10 Group Buff Duration
+15 Artisan Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+50 Precision
+50 Strength
+50 Stamina
+50 Agility

--Wookiee Species Traits

Wookiee Roar: You let loose with a ferocious roar that is absolutely terrifying. The attack bypasses all opponent defenses, inflicts harm, partially paralyzes and reduces the combat effectiveness of all enemies around you.

+ 3 Creature Knowledge
+10 Chef Assembly
+5 Chef Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+10 Precision
+85 Strength
+85 Constitution
+40 Stamina

--Rodian Species Traits

Hunter's Tenacity: You focus your determination reducing all action costs for a period of time.

+3 Droid Tracks (Bounty Hunter)
+10 Weapon Assembly
+5 Weapons Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+80 Precision
+20 Stamina
+80 Agility
+20 Luck

--Bothan Species Traits

Blend-In: You blend in with your immediate surroundings, becoming almost undetectable. Though you can creep about slowly any posture changes, such as sitting or kneeling, will reveal your presence.

+15 Camouflage
+10 Clothing Assembly
+5 Clothing Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+65 Precision
+25 Constitution
+50 Agility
+60 Luck

--Mon Calamari Species Traits

It's a Trap!: Through analysis of your opponent's strengths and weakness you determine a counter-strategy to increase your odds of defeating them. You unleash a cunning area attack that bypasses all opponent defenses, increasing their chance to be critically hit and decreasing the effectiveness of their attack.

+10 Pilot Special Tactics
+10 Weapon Assembly
+10 Structure Assembly
+5 Structure Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+60 Precision
+40 Constitution
+60 Stamina
+40 Luck

--Trandoshan Species Traits

Regeneration: You activate your astonishing powers of regeneration to heal 20 Health per level every second for several seconds.

+3% Unarmed (Knuckler type) Weapon Damage
+10 (+35 total) Creature Harvesting
+10 Armor Assembly
+5 Armor Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+50 Strength
+65 Constitution
+65 Stamina
+20 Agility

--Twilek Species Traits

Footwork: By focusing your efforts and recalling memories of past combats, you greatly increase your ability to anticipate and dodge enemy attacks

+3 Minutes per Tick Inspiration Duration Increase
+500 Vendor Item Limit

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+40 Precision
+60 Stamina
+60 Agility
+40 Luck

--Zabrak Species Traits

Equilibrium: You perform an astonishing feat of sheer will, drawing upon your inner reserves to push yourself to the limits of endurance and restore balance to your body in the face of exhaustion. When used you will heal 40 points of health and action per level. Reduced incapacitation and weakness timers.

+10 Droid Assembly
+5 Droid Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+50 Precision
+50 Strength
+50 Constitution
+50 Agility

--Ithorian Species Traits

Balance: You focus your efforts and take up an extremely stable combat stance greatly increasing your ability to block attacks. The amount of damage you prevent while blocking is also increased by 11 to 12 points per level.

+3% Ship Weapon Damage
+10 Chassis, Power Systems, Shields and Advanced Ship Assembly
+5 Chassis, Power Systems, Shields and Advanced Ship Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+40 Precision
+60 Strength
+70 Stamina
+30 Luck

--Sullustan Species Traits

Tech Knowledge: You focus your keen powers of observation to determine the optimum spot to attack an opponent, greatly increasing your chance for a critical hit. Reduced Hyperspace Navigation times.

+10 Engine, Booster, Ship Weapons Assembly
+5 Engine, Booster, Ship Weapons Experimentation

Stat Bonuses at Level 90
+40 Strength
+60 Constitution
+60 Agility
+40 Luck

Class Base Statistics

In order to offer further class differentiation we've made several improvements to the rate of gain and the final values of a character's base statistics (Strength, Precision, Agility, Stamina, Constitution and Luck). This replaces the across the board final +90 to Strength, Precision, Agility and Luck that all players currently receive. In addition when your character levels up, you will receive a detailed update on your total stat gains.

The following are the base statistics for each class. Note these values are added to the character's species statistic bonuses which are covered above. Also note that the total number of base stat points has not changed and all classes continue to get 360 points spread between the stats.

Smuggler Base Statistics
+120 Luck
+20 Precision
+20 Strength
+70 Constitution
+30 Stamina
+100 Agility

Officer Base Statistics
+20 Luck
+70 Precision
+50 Strength
+80 Constitution
+80 Stamina
+60 Agility

Commando Base Statistics
+60 Luck
+120 Precision
+120 Strength
+60 Constitution
+0 Stamina
+0 Agility

Jedi Base Statistics
+30 Luck
+30 Precision
+100 Strength
+40 Constitution
+40 Stamina
+120 Agility

Spy Base Statistics
+40 Luck
+50 Precision
+50 Strength
+80 Constitution
+40 Stamina
+100 Agility

Medic Base Statistics
+80 Luck
+50 Precision
+50 Strength
+60 Constitution
+120 Stamina
+0 Agility

Entertainer Base Statistics
+80 Luck
+0 Precision
+0 Strength
+40 Constitution
+120 Stamina
+120 Agility

Bounty Hunter Base Statistics
+20 Luck
+60 Precision
+40 Strength
+80 Constitution
+80 Stamina
+80 Agility

Trader Base Statistics
+90 Luck
+90 Precision
+90 Strength
+90 Agility
+0 Constitution
+0 Stamina

Chapter 4 Major Features

• New Commando Expertise System - The commandos are the heavy weapons experts in Star Wars Galaxies and the commando Expertise System gives them the power they crave. Commandos will be able to take advantage of new weapons, attack abilities and group buffs. Commandos will receive new weapons including all types of grenades and heavy weapons. And, since the Commando is a master of armor and demolition the primary commando tree offers the ability to control the timing of remote explosives through expertise like “Remote Detonator” and to increase accuracy/radius through “Flash Bang” and “Angled Shrapnel”. Plus, the commando expertise tree also includes new armor buffs, de-buffs, DOT attacks and heals. The second expertise branch, the assault tree, focuses on heavy weapons, grenades, and stat enhancements. Commandos will become extremely powerful adversaries and even more valuable allies! Click here for more information on Commando Expertise.

• Introduction of the Kill Meter Power Boost - Now, when Commandos go into battle the kill meter starts ticking. The kill meter amplifies your power with each kill up to a maximum of 50 kills. But, if you stop fighting it decays over time – there's an incentive to keep fighting the good fight! Click here for more information on Commando Expertise.

• New Spy Expertise System - The Spy Expertise system takes undercover over the top. The first tree is the Spy specific tree called Covert Operative. It allows the Spy to improve all aspects of being stealthy including a new speed burst, “Burst of Shadows” and to deal damage from stealth through two new combat abilities: “Ambush” and “Snipe”. The second tree is the Spy general tree and contains items that strengthen armor and survivability, traps and damage outside of stealth. Through this path the Spy can acquire skills like the new heal, “Cloaked Recovery”, and the ability to remove any damage over time effects like “Run Its Course” which removes all DoTs. Plus, the spy will become harder to detect and will become better at detecting others. Check out the new spy skills, if you can find them! Click here for more information on Spy Expertise.

• New Medic Expertise System - The medic will also receive new abilities. The new abilities will reinforce the medic's role as the primary group support by allowing them to build healing/enhancement, debuffing/crowd control and effect cancellation abilities. The thrust of both new expertise trees is on improving the Medic's ability to keep their group safe and strong and/or keep their group's enemies suppressed and wishing they were dead. Key new abilities include the single-target heal, “Bacta Grenade”, and the super-heal, “Bacta Bomb”. Enemies will be contained using skills like the “Serotonin Boost” and the uber-cool power, “Stasis Field”, which essentially functions like a straight jacket preventing the target from taking or dealing damage. Now, being a medic is more than just healing - it's a strategic component of combat. Click here for more information on Medic Expertise.

• Chapter 4 Gift: Holo-pets : Upon logging in during Chapter 4, you will receive a Holo-pet Data Cube and Emitter that can be placed inside your house. When the holo-pet emitter is deployed and a data cube is inserted, a holographic pet will wander a small area in the room. Holo-pet emitters are not tradeable, but data cubes are! Trade them with your friends! Click here for more information on Holo-pets.

Chapter 4 Update Notes

Combat

• Bug Fix: Expertise should no longer allow weapons to acquire ranges of greater than 64 meters.

• Bug Fix: Fixed an issue that under some circumstance can cause a player not to receive combat log messages.

Creature Harvesting

• User Interface: The Creature Harvesting skill modifier is now visible on your character sheet.

G-15 Keyboard

• Support added for the G15 LCD keyboard. If you hit any of the 4 soft key buttons, it should switch to displaying a variety of data, including: your hit points, your action points, whether you have mail pending, your GCW points, kills, and time remaining until update, your faction and PvP status, and your cash on hand and bank balance. If you have no G15, you should see no change in functionality.

Galactic Civil War

• Factions: When leaving the Imperial or Rebel factions, you must now wait 5 days before joining the opposing side. You can still rejoin the side you left without waiting for the timer to expire.

• Imperial Crackdown scans will no longer be confused about your correct GCW rank.

Profession: Smuggler

• Dizzy 1 should now hit for the correct amount of damage.

• Camouflage Ally ability no longer displays a factional error message when used on self and creatures.

• DOTs should no longer remove snares.

• Removed delay attack (daze) from Concussion Shot and Dizzy as it is not a functional debuff effect.

• Removed the attack animation for non-attack commands Sly Lie and Fast Talk.

• Snare immunity from Dizzy and Concussion Shot has been removed.

Profession: Jedi

• The profession skill wheel now displays the correct icons that represent the rewarded abilities to match the changes made when Jedi Expertise was introduced.

• Added Recourse effect to all DoT Immunity buffs.

• More powerful heals provide longer Dot Immunity buffs.

• Less powerful heals provide short Dot Immunity buffs.

Profession: Spy

• Renamed the non-expertise skills so they appear in alphabetical order in the command browser.

Profession Trader - Engineering

• Droid Engineering: The Creature Harvesting module schematic is once again available.

• Droid Engineering: Added an Auto-Harvest feature for droids equipped with harvesting modules.

Quests

• The "Graver Robbers" Quest on Talus can now be completed once more. The missing crate is back.

• Fixed an issue that was caused by deleting the quest "Old Republic Droid Modules: The Gungan Battle Droid" before it was complete. If you are stopped on this quest at Boss Nass and you have tried deleting the quest "Old Republic Droid Modules: The Gungan Battle Droid", then return to the RSF computer in Theed and accept the quest "Old Republic Droid Modules: The Gungan Battle Droid". Then return to Boss Nass. Boss Nass will now correctly update that quest to your point.

• The main quest from the Hero of Tatooine quest now is now tracked in the quest journal.

Space

• Pilot trainers will check for the proper GCW faction instead of positive faction standing before signing a player to a pilot profession.

Targeting

• Beneficial commands now assume self if your target is not valid for the command.

• Corpses can now be set as the intended target (green bracket target).

• Currently your target's health and action bar is displayed next to your character's health and action bar.

• If you are not using auto-aim mode, that target is the look-at target (i.e. your mouse over target indicated by the blue targeting bracket). If you are in auto-aim mode, that target is the intended target (indicated by the green targeting bracket).

User Interface

• Console command: Added /gameTime. This returns the game time approximated as earth time in the format HH:MM.

• Changed the order of "Yes" and "No" buttons in common dialog boxes to match a common UI standard.

• Changed the location of the "ok" and "cancel" buttons on the options window to match a common UI standard.

• Made some minor changes to the layout of the initial character creation screen.

• Made some minor layout changes to the character selection screen.

• Revised the layout for the initial character selection screen.

• Switched the location of the "add" and "close" buttons on the permissions windows.

• Switched the location of the "ok" and "cancel" buttons on the trade window to match a common UI standard.

• Bug Fix: Graphical glitch that appears periodically on some waypoints, particularly those associated with quests. Causes a brief "hiccup" where the moving particles appear to freeze and change position for a brief moment.

• Bug Fix: Certain inventory activities, in particular listing and delisting items from the bazaar while having your inventory open, could cause invalid "blank" entries to appear in the inventory. These entries could cause the client to crash to desktop.

• Bug Fix: Erroneous tool tip shows up on the third box of any expertise that has skill modifiers associated with it.

Chapter 3.8: "Smugglers and Scoundrels" Publish Notes November, 8th

There have been significant changes to the GCW points to Rank Progress formula.

The new formula uses diminishing returns from the start instead of at a pre-set limit. In a diminishing return formula, your first point is worth more than your last. Thus gaining 1000 GCW points in one week will yield less than 500 points in two consecutive weeks.

The Rank decay values for officers are consistent from week to week. The target GCW point values for each rank are in the following table. If you earn the target GCW points, you will suffer no decay. Any GCW points past these marks will be converted into progress. If you earn fewer than the target GCW points, you will suffer decay based on how many GCW points you are short of the target GCW points, up to a maximum of 40% rank loss.

7. 7500
8. 8200
9. 9000
10. 10200
11. 12000
12. 15000

Interface

You will no longer crash when dragging an item onto an invisible item in your inventory.
Clicking a factory without having a draft schematic ready will no longer result in non-stop system message spam.

Species

Rebel factional armor can be equipped by Wookiees and will not have an appearance.

Vehicles

Players will no longer loose their instant travel vehicles in the world due to them not despawning after being called.

Test Center Update - Chapter 3.7

Test Center Update Notes, October 27th

Note: The game will now utilize up to 2GB of ram. Systems with more then 1GB of memory should see performance improvements during long play sessions.

Galactic Civil War

Player Bases: Fixed an issue that was preventing new bases from being placed even if below the planetary cap.

Doubled value of destroying a player placed GCW base.

Increased planetary control value of some player placed GCW bases.

Doubled average PvP region GCW point grant and increased player activity factor.

Doubled daily PvP GCW point limit.

Decreased space PvE GCW point per tier value to 4 from 6.

Decreased value of an Elite faction NPC to 10 from 12.

You must now be on the attacker list to receive credit for a PvE kill.

Loot

DE-10 Pistol Barrels are now dropping with serial numbers once more. If you have one without a serial number, thus making it not usable in crafting the pistol, Customer Service can trade you a new one.

Quests

Boba Fett's 5th and 6th quest can now be abandoned.
Fixed Exploit with Boba Fett's quests

Space

Credit for a space PvE or PvP kill will now be granted to the entire crew of a multi-player craft and not just the pilot.

User Interface

Bug Fix: If you examine the character sheet of another character, the guild name of the character being examined will be displayed at the top of the character sheet.

The guild title of the character being examined will not be displayed at the top of the character sheet.

If you examine the character sheet of your own character, both the guild name and guild title of your own character will be displayed at the top of the character sheet.

Zham says - Regarding the reduction in space PVE GCW points, that translates into a 10 point loss for a Tier 5 kill. Instead of 30, you will get 20 points. Every 10 kills represents a 100 point loss in GCW points from what you should have had. What's even more interesting is that, until today SOE had 2 polls on the front page. 1 asked about what was stopping players from PVP'ing, the other was asking what game play people preferred to gain GCW. That second one had PVE content winning with 67% of the vote. That second poll is now gone. Seems like SOE wants to try and force people to do PVP, which they've said in a resounding fashion that they don't want to do.

Update Scheduled for Wed, Oct 25

Chapter 3.6: "Smugglers and Scoundrels" Publish Notes Wednesday, October 25th

On Wednesday, October 25th at 4:00 AM PDT all U.S. and European galaxies will be taken down for server maintenance and a live update.

When the update is complete, all galaxies will be live but unavailable while we complete final testing. All galaxies will be made available after that time.

4:00 AM PDT (Los Angeles) / 6:00 AM CDT (Austin) / 7:00 AM EDT (New York)
12:00 PM BST (London) / 1:00 PM CEST (Berlin) / 8:00 PM (Tokyo)
[Click here for a Time Zone Calculator]

Always remember to check the Announcement Forum for the latest information.

Combat

Unattackable targets can no longer be attacked.

Droids

Added the Auto Harvest feature to droids that are equipped with harvest modules.

Profession: Trader

Engineering: The Creature Harvesting Module is once again available in the schematics group.
User Interface

Character Sheet: The Creature Harvesting skill modifier is now visible on the character sheet.
Click here to see all the publish notes for the Current Chapter.

EA Assaults Shelves with BF2142

From EA.com:

Prepare for titanic all-out war in the year 2142! Electronic Arts today announced that Battlefield 2142 has shipped to retailers in North America and Europe for the PC under the EA brand. The game is rated "T for Teen" and carries a MSRP of $49.99. Battlefield 2142 was developed by Sweden-based developer Digital Illusions.

XvT WOW 100

From LordRamses:

Greetings everyone,

like I prommissed in my last email, will I update you on the WoW C. Many of your have replied to my last email and I am happy to see that we will have some old clubs signed up again.

The Week of War 100 has been set up at BSC and is ready for sign up.
http://www.battlestats.com/events/?458
Please inform your membership about the upcomming event and also about October Week of War, which is running right now.

We now play on the Errant Venture client. It can be downloaded at
http://www.lukasrediger.com/xvt/redist.zip .

A short guide how to use it:

Before you begin make sure the following Windows components are installed:

Microsoft .net Framework 1.1 and all service packs (all windows versions)
Direct X 9.0c or later (all windows versions)
Service pack 2 for XP
Service pack 4 for 2000

Download and extract the redist package.

If you have a Router open the following ports:

1001
2300 - 2400
2403 - 2404
6073
47624
2020 - (required to run an EV server)

All of these (mentioned in various parts of the EV client Readme file) should be enabled for both TCP and UDP. If your router doesn't allow port forwarding you can set the DMZ option. See your router manual on how to do this.

Any questions about the WoW and the Errant Venture can be asked on the XvT comlink at BSC. http://www.battlestats.com/games/?xvt

*S*

Sincerely

Lord_Ramses
XvT Game SysOp