Beta 3 starts on Sunday the 17th. At that time ALFA DM's will update to ALFA Core Scripst 1.12. There are some big changes, the most important of which is NO DROP VISAS. You will need to travel the Realms the way the Gods intended: laboriously, on foot.
There are numerous fixes in there, the most important fixes are to the Morgue (Morgue bugs should drop drastically).
Most importantly, we are ready to start play balancing! Do yourself a favor and play, test, and report. This is the meat of beta testing: making the game satisfying.
The roleplay starts here!

Does that imply another vault wipe so everyone starts from scratch again?

Yup, if you want to die gloriously now would be a good time! ;)

Well, I certainly died gloriously last night :) After leveling up 11 times :roll:

Any information on when the servers will be back up and running?

Ok Erran, I'm confused. I thought you said over on the ALFA boards that you were going to be down for awhile adding new areas. So can we log in there to start testing (provided my ISP gets my DSL back up)or should we wait?

She's up now, check out the new bathhouse. ;) These does not mean that I won't take it down from time to time to add new content, so I don't advise leaving things in chests. Please report on balance things, like if you find valuable items just lying around or ways to rack up large amounts of cash/xps/items at low risk.

Please note, DMs may be operating a random 'stop and search' during this phase so don't be surprised if you are asked how you came by that +3 flail. We are not accusing players of misconduct, just trying to balance up the servers.

[ November 18, 2002, 14:54: Message edited by: Erran ]

Heh, it would be great to find even a +1 flail, let alone a +3. :)

Actually, I was on last night, and there were a lot of new faces around. It will be good once we're live, and Phlan becomes the happening place it is destined for. Of course, by the time I got anywhere, the sewers were cleaned out, the goblins by the river were destroyed, and I didn't get a chance to go up to Valhingen. There will be much more of a need for parties to wander further out on adventures, or to probe more into the intrigues in town.

Well, no-one did the goblin elites nor the Valhingen crypts, though by the look of the logs a few died trying ;)
I plan to be on wed and sat evenings ~9pm gmt for a bit of dm-ed sessions.

My only complaint...and this is server-wide, not just Phlan, is that it is damn near impossible to find gold/weapons/experience. And forget trying to go anywhere alone.

So far the longest I've survived alone has been on the Daggerdale server. I killed 12 fire beetles, 1 zombie, , 1 bat, 1 stirge, 2 tieflings, and 7 bandits. What did I get for my trouble? 12 fire beetle bellies & 1 cure light wounds potion, and 78 experience points! I then died at the hands of two steam mephits while trying to clear a tower for the local lord.

So far, I have never leveled up in Beta. I don't know about you, but it's not fun being a level 1 (whatever) with a short sword and leather armor! I understand about game balance, but I would expect when bandits or pc-type monster die, they would be carrying SOMETHING worth salvaging! I mean, hell, when I die, I drop leather armor, a short sword, and 50 gps!!! Not too shabby for a level 1 grub!

Can I get a little gold/items/experience...PLEEZ?!?!

If you are finding ot hard that's good, the intention is to get most xps fron dmed sessions.

However: I leveled in about 2hrs playtesting on Phlan and there was a level 4 within 3 days. The answer? Get out of town and go game hunting ;)

[ November 23, 2002, 01:25: Message edited by: Erran ]

Mmm....some of those things are little tricky for rogues, bards and similar 'weaker' fighter-types. When I've been fortunate enough to be in a party, I usually do quite well - provided my party member(s) don't go running headlong into traps, ambushes, etc. And I like that it takes a lot to level up - I think it's more reflective of PnP play :)

But quite often I'm on the server and unable to hook up with anyone else, either because I can't find anyone, or no one else is on the server. On those occassions I find it very hard to get any xp for my character. I do have a lot of fun running around checking things out - thanks to good hide skills ;) Still, I haven't found anything on Phlan that I can do alone as a rogue - is there stuff I'm missing?

BTW - having been on a couple of servers, I must say that I think Phlan is the most developed. It's obvious that a lot of work has gone into building up the whole region. So, thanks to all for putting in the effort!

Yes Gnolyn, there are some houses that can be *cough* entered. They may be occupied and murder is a serious issue. Also, they don't respawn treasure and tend to get emptied early. Some npcs are pick pocketable.

I wanted to apologize...I tried to pickpocket Fannie Underhill last night. I failed, she went hostile...and I, um, had to eliminate her.

Doesn't this kind of defeat the purpose of "no witnesses"? You could have just run away; why kill her and then let everyone know? ;)

Mostly because I am deceased now as well. I was stalked and killed by a lion out in the grasslands! :p

It was actually funny...I was in hide mode, and it was just following me around...Then it pounced for 11 hit points of damage. I died instantly and ingloriously.