Varlyndria: Ascension - Coming Summer 2013

[Drakiyth]

I don't hesitate to get things done. Check out these new goodies coming to the dedication vendor soon.



Rod of the Dedicated: COST: 2000 dedication points. 100 charges,
Clicky: (just like tier 1 donator item) Heals a player for 8450 base health
(enhanced by wisdom VSES) and 16,500 mana and endurance.
30 SECOND CD - Shares CD with donator clicky.

Trinket of the Titan: COST 500 dedication points, 5 charges,
Clicky: Grants you 150 STR for 1 hour.
(stacks with almost everything)

Trinket of the Musician: COST 500 dedication points, 5 charges,
Clicky: Grants you 150 DEX for 1 hour.
(stacks with almost everything)

Trinket of the Mountain: COST 500 dedication points, 5 charges,
Clicky: Grants you 150 STA for 1 hour.
(stacks with almost everything)

Trinket of the Skilled: COST 500 dedication points, 5 charges,
Clicky: Grants you 150 INT for 1 hour. (stacks with almost everything)

Trinket of the Faithful: COST 500 dedication points, 5 charges,
Clicky: Grants you 150 WIS for 1 hour. (stacks with almost everything)

Trinket of the Beast Tamer: COST 500 dedication points, 5 charges,
Clicky: Grants you 150 CHA for 1 hour. (stacks with almost everything)

[Drakiyth]

EMERGENCY FIX IN - Some mobs in Rivervale will no longer resist everything. This was a bug.



Please download and install the new files: Varlyndria Files 08 23 13

• Some caster NPCs have lost their long duration spells that keep you
in combat forever.

• The new Rivervale PR6 Normal zone is now in the game! Players need
a gear score of 950 to enter this place.

• Added 1120 new armor and jewelry pieces into the game that drop in
Rivervale. These items are labeled "Stormcrow:".

• Added a new Treasured: item to the final boss in Rivervale.

• Added a new task in Rivervale that rewards a cool ring.

• Normal raid npcs now have a 2% chance to drop loot up from 0.5%.

• Vampire's Bursting Veins - now has the correct cooldown of 24 seconds.

• Deathguard's Sentinel of Undeath no longer gives 50 CHA but now instead
gives 36% Melee mit up from 32%, 16% evasion and 100% melee damage.

• Added 10 new items to the dedication vendor that can heal, give stats
and give defensive procs to players. Remember that you can spend your
hard-earned platinum on dedication scrolls to get your points up or
just wait it out while you're at work to get these awesome new clickies.
The bazaar gives 7 dedication points every 5 minutes as well if you want
to get some extra bonus points over night!

• Berserkers no longer have the Special AA tab choices. This was a bug.

• The Epic Wildheart Life's Gift now stacks with the other casted Life's Gift.

• Ring of the Dedicated now says clickable from inventory instead of must equip.

• Beastlords can now use most 2 hand piercing weapons.

• Bestial Overseer's Ego buff now lasts for 24 seconds up from 18.

• Zatetzuken's Custom Donator blades are now tradeable/attuneable.

• Dune Raiser's Horror of the Sands no longer requires you to be right next to your
pet to buff them.

• Helpful NPCs in Unrest can no longer be killed.

• Razorthorn the Devourer now only casts Venom breath instead of unholy, fear and
the mana/endurance drain.

[Drakiyth]

After thinking about it for a while and experiencing some of my own server I feel that the raid scenario pigeon holes players into being forced to find a group and guild and kills their fun and self improvement. I understand that the original design of an mmorpg is to team up and take on the baddies with whatever you can combine together but it overall turns into a DPS fest and who has the biggest.. well you know where I was going with that.

The case in point is I feel the server needs more freedom. I don't want players logging on and logging off because they can't find somebody to team with. I want to make sure players have both options but only if they choose to do so. Overall with this said I feel like raids need to be eliminated completely and the server needs to turn more solo to 1 group based like the diablo series. This will allow players to relax more and stop comparing classes so much and get through the content by themselves on their own time or with a friend or two but no more being forced to raid.

With this said: the following changes will be happening to
Varlyndria: Ascension. Effective immediately.

Veksar, Fallen, Monkey Rock and Kurn's Tower are becoming normal zone difficulty and the items dropped in those zones will once again become tradeable and attuneable.


I don't want any player on Varlyndria feeling squashed up in a corner and not able to enjoy the server. Those days have ended.

[Drakiyth]

UPDATE 08/24/13 - FREEDOM!

• The #fi command for players has been restored.

• Raid zones have been eliminated!

• Veksar, Fallen, Monkey Rock and Old Kurn's Tower are now
normal zones.

• Darktide, Fallen, Blightrune and Deathspire gear is now
attunable and tradeable.

• All gear types on the server have been balanced in their
stats to fit the new changes.

• Items with Might, Cunning, Vigor, Reason, Knowledge and Attraction
now have much stronger bonuses to that particular stat now, making
these items a lot more valuable on the market.

• The Rift Keeper Gear Score checks are different now to fit
the new changes.

• Treasured: items now only give a *2 bonus to hp/mp/end down
from *4 because of the new changes.

• Epic 1: items now only give a *2 bonus to hp/mp/end down from
*4 because of the new changes.

• Darktide, Fallen, Blightrune and Deathspire gear no longer gets
+35% bonus to hp/mp/end because of the new changes.

• Various Mistmoore items are now just slightly stronger than traveler and
this zone is now available for players with 100 gearscore on the Rift Keeper.
This is a very low power leveling zone that can offer some decent gear to
progress to the 240 zones. The zone is considered 1.1 for experience.

• Players can now portal to Necropolis from the Riftkeeper. Necropolis mobs
also drop Drakebone: gear.

• Added a new portal master and crystal of heroes in Mistmoore and Necropolis

[Drakiyth]

A new beginning.

We'll see how things go and how players like this for a bit. I have some tricks up my sleeve, and if anything, this has made it where I can put together a brand new large raid since all old raids are normal zones now. This time around if I do another raid I want to make sure it requires a certain amount of players to enter as well.

[Drakiyth]

THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG - THE FUTURE OF VARLYNDRIA REVEALED


EDIT: I do plan to balance out the OP paths as well but it's easier when players are decked out and balanced on the same playing field.


Alright, so this change everybody is experiencing does have a motive behind it. The issue the server was having before is there were far too many "raids" if you wanted to call them that and very little players geared enough to actually do that content. This lead to players not having any groups to do this and only the choice 10% of the server could tackle it. I have changed all the zones currently available in Varlyndria to solo/group for two main reasons:

#1: Players can enjoy all the stuff they missed out on over the months and see the content they couldn't do before because of how hard it was and also get their epic 1.0 a bit easier.

#2: Players can catch up by getting uber geared out and reach a peak where they are dying for new better and challenging content.

My advice to everybody: Play your hearts out and get STRONG, get guilds formed and let's get the server balanced out in power. When that happens new things can come out that will challenge you to the extreme, including new 18+ man raids that require 18+ people and are designed to take on 18 3000+ GS players etc.


Go play and have fun and GEAR UP!

[Drakiyth]

Time Travelers are in the game now.

Added Time Travelers (Paid Instancing Npcs) to all Rift Keeper zones of 240+. The prices to create your own instance vary on the zone. You also need to be in a guild to make them. Players can join the Heroes of Varlyndria guild with the NPC in Toskirakk if they don't have any friends.

Enjoy all.

[Drakiyth]

New AA merchants!

• Added a Treasure Hoarder merchant in the Portal Chamber that sells Treasured
Boss loot for a massive amount of AA and VarCredits.

• Added a new 1350+ Gearscore AA vendor in the Portal Chamber that
sells Rank 5 type 7 augs and Rank 3 Crystal Augs.

• Added a new NPC which will raise your base stats for AA points.
(players start with 5 to all base) You can only raise your stats to 255 max with this
NPC but the AA cost for it is ungodly to achieve. The npc's name is "Jahahm the Wish Granter".

[AzsharasDad]

You aren't schizophrenic, right? No insult intended I am half joking, but I see frequent and massive changes and that makes me cautious to invest time with so much uncertainty regarding the intended direction of the game.

[lupisnoctum]

Originally Posted by AzsharasDad

You aren't schizophrenic, right? No insult intended I am half joking, but I see frequent and massive changes and that makes me cautious to invest time with so much uncertainty regarding the intended direction of the game.

Your caution is well advised. The history of Varlyndria has been one of wild flailing in many different directions, often several directions at once.

[Drakiyth]

Originally Posted by AzsharasDad

You aren't schizophrenic, right? No insult intended I am half joking, but I see frequent and massive changes and that makes me cautious to invest time with so much uncertainty regarding the intended direction of the game.

No. I am not diagnosed with Schizophrenia.
I can tell reality from fantasy or something that is not real.
(meaning of the word you used)

I do apologize if the changes lately have been rather sporadic but this change I just made is to balance the server by pushing everybody up to a certain point; and then releasing content that a large majority of players can tackle while being able to find groups a lot easier for the new content coming out because everybody is around that power level. The main reason for this is because we did not do a full wipe when Ascension came out, which ultimately allowed uber players who were from the old server steamroll content to the point the economy was harmed and nothing was strong enough to stop them. With everything being attunable it lead to some major problems in the beginning with loot and lower level power ranked players getting their hands on it too early. I did promise these players who worked hard that I wouldn't wipe it though and I kept that promise. However, these changes that just happened needed to take effect because this will allow everybody to get caught up to those players easier, stabilize the economy and allow a new door which leads to content that can actually challenge everybody not just top geared toons to come into fruition.

I am doing my best to get the server steady before I can even call it a "Beta". It is still in alpha right now for a reason. Many of the AA problems players were experiencing (not having anything to spend them on) has been fixed with the new additions. I wish a majority of players could experience what it's like to have their own server at least once in their life and experience the various opinions that fly at them in all directions from multiple individuals that want them to change the server in their vision as if they are right and you are wrong and they want to take over.

For those types of players, I have one option for you: Start your own server and good luck with it. If you want to truly express your vision to the world and ultimately feel what it's like to have opinions thrown at you to experience what you just dished out for yourself, be my guest.

This is not saying that some of those players do not have good ideas. (I've taken plenty ideas and used them) but it is saying like above that you can't please everybody no matter how hard you try.

I appreciate your feedback but this is still an alpha and I ask for your patience until we go beta.

[Burningsoul]

Again, from someone who hasn't played yet read the changelogs... I see a massive, GLOBAL sweep to change the essence of the game. Secrets nailed it after we rallied for it - stop paying cash just because you WANT the best, pay the cash because the SERVER is the best - freemium my ass, give us fun and we WILL support. That support ends when we see OP noobs with cash to blow on the same tier as people who devote their time. (After seeing Clair ruin lootfest, I don't ever want that again).

What I see now, is Drak bending because of a sizeable amount of forum chatter. Clearly, he has something good here. However, now he has to deal with an uprising - (those who throw cash at anything VS those that pay because they LOVE the server and the ideals, not the freemium tactics), he's bending. Drak, get your ideals set first. You did a -lot- of good here. As someone who wanted to recreate the fun of Scorp2k/Last World/X5/SoA (pre-donate-win-button)/Lootfest Pre-Clair, but but lacked the tech aspect to make it happen...when 4 posters + Secrets' best worded attack make you start to change things, you have to set sights on the focus of the server.

Remember Last World? That people who played it hold it dear in their hearts and want to play again? How about any other donate-to-get-easy-mode server? Those come and go, but DAMNED sure we remember to good ones. And fug it, I -want- this to be a good one. It LOOKS amazing. Not since I joined the scene in '04* have I seen stuff like the current servers are producing. But please, don't succumb to the others' downfall of pay to win. Monetary is one thing, but if you want to be a legend, make us remember WHY it was good - not why once we threw X amount of cash at it, we won.

Again, I'm probably off base, but I'm speaking my mind. If I had the ability to make a server of this scope, I'd damned sure try. I just don't want to see everything you've done thrown away since people spoke up, and then see your server changed because of that. Make it come from the reason you started - to change the vision of an emu server. To make a fun, UNIQUE experience. From a failed server OP to you, that's why we all started. Much love for what you've done, from a failed server admin to what you're producing now, just saying....

Drak - not playing I'm sure I'm wrong on lots of things - and this isn't intended as a flame. You're a great upstanding person on these forums, and I respect the hell out of what you made. I just want to make my voice heard here and now.

In short, you damn sure can't please everybody - but you can leave a good taste in our mouths when we play. I've seen plenty of servers I wish were still around do it. You're doing good, keep on the path of taking constructive criticism and you're gold - just keep the core fundamentals in mind. Again, not an intended flame - just a better worded King Mort ramble from someone who's loaded and wants to see you flourish. Keep it up man, and mad props for breaking the mold.

[Drakiyth]

Originally Posted by ak48

Also, if the "Donations" are being used for anything other than the server itself it is I believe it is no longer non-profit and therefore is taxable income.

The server doesn't create its self.


UPDATE 08/26/13

• Enemy NPCs are a bit tougher now. Overlord Npcs might require a couple people to take down.

• Soulreapers now regenerate 25,000 hp per tick + Wisdom Enhancement bonus with
the Dark Reaper on. This will prevent them from dying from anything that gets
through the defenses of this buff.

• The #Fi or #itemsearch command now actually works for players now.

• The AA, "Animation Empathy" can now be learned by all classes. This AA will allow
the White Lotus to control their pet.

• Fixed Bursting Veins to be a 24 second CD down from 48 seconds. It didn't change
last patch for some odd reason.

• Theft of Life and Soul Abrasion AA powers have been removed from the game. These
AA powers were giving vampires the ability to become gods which was never intended.
If you had these powers before talk to a GM for AA refunds.

• Thane's Rune of Stone now only gives 12% mitigation down from 24%. It's end
cost is 480 and it now recharges every 12 seconds and lasts 6 seconds.

• Thane's Blessing of Thunder has changed. They now get 36% mit, 100% to melee damage,
+200% to their base parry chance and their 210 base damage defensive proc.