Feature Updates

New Skill: Herbalism

We have created a beta test version of the new herbalism skill. Herbalists are those with advanced knowledge about the practical usage of plant materials in healing as well as other aspects.

Some examples of items you will be able to craft in the future; medicines, poultices, salves, poisons and antidotes

Gardening is now a general skill that anyone will be able to learn regardless of their class and is used in the practical sense of growing high quality plants and produce. They will retain the ability to make simple pastes and teas. More complex recipes are handled by herbalism, which is a class specific skill.

New Feature: Unfurnished Apartments

Unfurnished apartment units have been added throughout the game (and I will continue to add more as time permits). They vary in size and cost to rent. The keys for these units can be acquired from one of the NPCs in the trade house on Via d'Acqua. The rooms in these units are generic and completely empty aside from things like walls, floors, ceilings, and windows, so you will be able to decorate them however you see fit.

New Feature: Sharing Rooms

You can have duplicate room keys made for any rooms that open with a key. To do this, get a key to the room in question, i.e. the one you are already renting, from the NPC who offers that key. Use the key to unlock your door, and the key will be marked to open your door going forward. Please note that anyone in the possession of the key will be able to open your door, so be careful whom you give your key to. Staff will not be retrieving keys from other PCs, and we do not currently have an option to have your locks changed (we plan to implement this eventually). The only way to disable the key right now is to return the room and rent a new one.

New(ish) Sub-Class: Bookbinder

We have a new sub-class under tradesman for creating books and other paper goods. All of the books from the scholar career have been moved to this skillset, and I have added various types of stationery to this skillset as well. Reams of paper can be acquired from the NPC in the stationery shop on Via Ovest (command for paper: cut my paper). Colored scrolls will no longer be available through your guilds or through NPCs. Instead, you will have to get them from a bookbinder, who can use any of the regular dyes in the game to dye the paper. Paper goods can be embossed, including custom embossings. Bookbinders will also be able to create a box of 50 scrolls to save on time. Embossings applied directly to the box will transfer to all scrolls taken from the box (command: pull my scroll box).

Note: If you paid tokens for custom scrolls for your guild, you will be reimbursed in coin.

New Location: Stables

A public stable has been added outside of the palace on Strada Principale. It has two free-to-rent stalls that function like private rooms in which you can keep your mounts.

Update: The Severed Tail

The Severed Tail has been split into two separate inns--The Florentine Bed & Breakfast and The Copper Claw. The Florentine has the themed rooms, and The Copper Claww other has the two regular rooms. Both inns are located on the southeastern side of town.

Update: Houses & Embassies

The existing noble houses have been changed to the following (to no one's surprise, hopefully):

Avoirdupois - France (estate located on Strada la Libreria)
Bisclavret - Scotland (estate located on Via di Dio)
Doloreaux - Germany (estate located on Strada Lavorante)
Rinaldi - Italy (palace located on Strada Principale)

Two more noble houses have been added:

England (estate located on Via d'Acqua)
Spain (estate located on Piazza Colosseo)

New Skills: Lipreading & Eavesdropping

Lipreading and eavesdropping skills have been added to certain sub-classes. Lipreading (command: lipread roo) will enable you to understand parts of whispers. The amount that you'll be able to understand will vary based on your skill level. When the skill is maxed, you will not be able to read 100% of every whisper. Likewise, you can only listen to one person at a time, and you will stop lipreading if you go idle for a certain length of time. Lipreading is invisible, so your target will not be able to tell that you're lipreading. Eavesdropping works the same way, except it allows you to listen to an adjacent room (command: eavesdrop on south exit).

Update: Healing

The healing system has been modified to be more RP-involved. To begin the healing process, you will diagnose the person (command: diagnose roo) to see their stats, which will show hunger, poisoning, injuries, and other things. If a body part has an injury, you can diagnose that body part (command: diagnose roo's right bicep), which will show you how to treat the injury. Different injuries will require different forms of treatment, such as cauterizing, bandaging, stitching, et cetera. Injuries have a chance of becoming infected.

More types of wounds have been added to better reflect combat. Complications and treatments will vary based on the severity and type of wound. Wounds will get worse over time if left untreated.

We plan to add more features to the healing system in the future, including medicines, broken bones, and treatment for comatose patients.

Note: Because magic has been entirely removed from the game world, resurrection will no longer be an option. Characters will go into a coma if they sustain too many injuries or otherwise leave things untreated. Your character will not die under any circumstances unless you explicitly consent to death. Death will be permanent.

Update: Languages

Languages will be scaled to 24 instead of 8 for fluency. Your existing levels in the regional languages will scale accordingly (3 levels for each existing level, i.e. level 6 will become level 18). Animal languages will be removed. New characters will start with fluency in one language depending on the chosen home location during character generation.

Regional languages will be converted:

Akoman - Arabic
Eastern - French
Northern - German
Old - Latin
Southern - Italian
Western - Gaelic

You also have the ability to write in languages. To do this, switch to the language that you want to write in as though you were going to speak it (command: @speak french). Anything you compose while the language is toggled on will be written in that language. Your ability to read and write in the target language will be based on your fluency in the language. This should not affect your ability to address or sign things.

New(ish) Location: Abbey

l'Abbazia di San Francis has been added on the northeastern side of town on Via Nord. It includes two private rooms that can be rented by members of the church.

Update: Inn Rooms

Inn rooms that did not use room keys have been converted to the key-based system. This affects rooms in The Copper Claw (western half of The Severed Tail), The Florentine Bed & Breakfast (eastern half of The Severed Tail), and Alloggi di Anasette (The Gilded Balance).

This will allow you to do a number of things:
1.) You will be able share rooms via keys (see post #5 in this thread).
2.) You will be able to stop renting rooms that you previously could not stop renting.
3.) You will be able to rent more than one room in a location without having to return a different one.

If you are renting a room at one of those locations and do not have a key for it, you should be able to get one from the NPC and follow the duplication process outlined in post #5 to make one for your room. Additionally, if you want to return a room and do not have a key for it, you should be able to follow the duplication process, then offer the key back to any of the PCs who give out keys. Please note that all items inside of a room will be permanently deleted when you return the room, so double and triple check that you did not leave anything behind. Staff cannot recover these items.

Update: Embassy Private Rooms

The embassies now have three different private rooms. The availability of each room will depend on your rank:

staff bedroom (basement) - thane and below
low nobility bedroom (upstairs) - gentry to baron
high nobility suite (upstairs) - viscount and up

If you are already renting one of these rooms, but your rank is not as indicated above, you will not lose access to your room. However, you will not be able to rent the room again if you return it.

Newly rented nobility rooms will be unfurnished going forward. Furniture in rooms that have already been rented is no longer locked in place, so you should be able to remove everything from the room and replace it with something nicer. Newly rented nobility rooms will also come with a functioning fireplace. This change is not retroactive, so you will have to return and re-rent the room to get one (if you're of appropriate rank to get the room again).

Update: NPC Teachers

Guild teachers have been removed from @guild and replaced by NPC teachers, who can be found throughout the city (in many instances, merchants can also teach). As with most other NPCs, the command to see a list of what teacher NPCs offer is ask. You can ask the NPC about a skill in order to study that skill (ex: ask jeweler about appraise). NPC lessons cost money, and the learning point cost is higher than if you were to learn from another PC. NPC lessons also take longer (30 minutes). Guild leaders and ambassadors have the option to cover the cost of NPC lessons on a member-by-member basis in @guild.

Note: The general skills have not been implemented yet for NPC teachers.