I finally did something I've been meaning to do for the longest time: now all the terrain types have different "blocked square" icons! The forest still has the traditional pond   but now the desert has its oasis   the plains have a watering hole hidden amongst the high grass   the mountains are blocked by a raging volcano   and the swamp contains a spooky old dead tree

One of our newest players suggested we add a chatroom. After 30 seconds of extensive research, I found a free flash-based chatroom program, and created one for WyvernQuest. I'm not sure how good it is, but feel free to check it out!

(An un-integrated chatroom didn't really fly, I took it down as of 4/13/08)

Our server had an unplanned hard drive death last week; it now appears to be back & running. Everyone's characters should be up-to-date (there's a save-date of 9/4/07, for example).

The old messageboard data is gone now, but we should eventually be able to bring it back.

To balance out the player's skills, now the Monsters can have one of 9 different powers:
Strong, Fast, Magic Breath, Magic Shield, Ambush, Poison, Stun, Thief, and Undead.

Many monsters don't have any powers, but you'll encounter more monsters with powers as you go farther in the game. Like player's skills, each monster that has a power only manages to use that power a certain percentage of the time. As you go farther in the game, monsters tend to be better at their powers, and to have more powers; however, monsters never have over a 75% chance of using any of their powers, and can have at most 4 of the 9 different powers.

There are now 9 Skills available to players:
Parry, Thrust, Escape, Ambush, Brutality, Tirelessness, Wariness, Carouse, & Meditate.
Each skill is automatically rolled for in a certain circumstance; the skills' purpose is described on the Skills Tab.

You start with a 0% chance of using any of them, and can increase this chance with Skill Points (SkP) you get by Leveling Up. Every time you increase your level, you get a certain amount of skill points (1 point for levels 1-5, 2 points for levels 6-10, etc). You can use these points to increase your Percent Chance of using these skills. The cost of Skill Percentages increases; buying 1% to 5% costs 1 SkP each; increasing a skill to 6% to 10% costs 2 SkP each, etc.

If you want, you can eventually increase a skill over 100%; you automatically succeed, but then have a % chance of succeeding twice equal to your Skill - 100 (i.e., if you have 150% in a skill, you have one automatic success, and a 50% chance of a second success). For each additional success, the skill's fractional bonus is increased by half. For example, a skill that normally increases something by 10% will increase it by 15% with two successes, 17.5% with 3 successes, etc.

When you successfully use a skill, you'll see a small link with the first two letters of that skill; if you want more details on the skill's effect, click the link.

Now some countries sell Axes or Spears instead of Swords. The Sword is the "balanced" weapon. Compared to it, a Spear gives you more Defense and less Offense, while the Axe gives you more Offense but less Defense.

The Dagger also has a more powerful version, the Mace: it increases your offense and reduces your defense.

The Buckler has a more powerful version, the Shield: it increases your defense and reduces your offense.