Production Build #4.0.0

Big Inventory UI update:

• Health and Magic Potions have a dedicated inventory slot
• Health and Magic Potions will stack so you can hold up to 9 each
• Health and Magic Potions are purchasable if you don't have any
• Health and Magic Potions slots have new hotkeys [mod edit: Check your hotkeys everyone!]

Amulet of Resurrection Changes:
The Amulet curse seems to have corrupted the amulet's ability to prevent death. Amulet users beware!
[Mod edit: Early testing of the Amulet's rate of zombification suggests that it happens less than 5% of the time.]
The Amulet fame price is being lowered

• New Pets available for Hurricane Sandy Relief efforts. See my other post here for more info.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed profanity filter bug. It should now work how it was originally.
• Resolved chatting issues between users on different maps(fixed earlier this week)
• Fixed disconnected halls in the Candyland Hunting Grounds
• Fixed various typos in the game
• Servers/Legends are now in their correct place
• Character names in the UI are now back in their correct place

Known Bugs:

• XP Booster graphic ("x2") not showing up in the XP Bar when used. The XP Boost is functioning correctly, just not displaying on the UI as active. This will be fixed in the next hotfix.
• It is possible to drop items from the inventory into a soulbound bag if you stand over it. All dropped items should appear in public bags.
• The statistics on the stats tab are misaligned.
• The tutorial arrows point to the where the inventory was on the old UI.
• The nexus button and the new HP/MP slots appear to have hitboxes that do not match their appearance. This means they overflow onto other parts of the interface.
• HP and MP pots cannot be put into the vault
• HP and MP pots cannot be traded
• HP/MP pots cannot be dragged into the inventory. HP/MP pots can be placed in your inventory by item swapping for a pot on the ground. One of these must be a bug.
• Drinking HP or MP pots from the new slots does not prevent you from getting the Thirsty Achievement
• Drinking HP or MP pots does not cause the potion drinking sound to play.
• Shadow HP or MP pots can be dragged into the new slots, take up space, but cannot be consumed. A 'shadow' item can be created by switching two items quickly until it bugs out.
• After Davy Jones' Locker, the keys in the upper left hand corner stay.
• The teleport menu can get stuck on screen. Second screenshot. Apparently this can be reproduced by nexusing while the menu is up on screen.
• The gold purchasing menu can get stuck on screen.
• Trying to purchase an item with insufficient gold causes a purchase menu to pop up. This menu can pop up during combat if you try to buy a potion while playing.
• New Character creation can result in ART sprites replacing default gear.
• Using the Cloak while going solo in the Candyland will cause the monsters to despawn or disappear.
• The bat pet faces only one direction.
• Cursed Amulets appear to be randomly disappearing.
• The game does not announce when a player reaches level 20.
• Unable to shoot weapon or use ability when the cursor is hovering over chat text.

Hurricane Sandy Relief Charity

As the East Coast of the United States reels from the effects of Hurricane Sandy, the Realm of the Mad God team would like to offer you an opportunity to help.

Starting today, we will have new limited-edition pets and new types of cloth available in the game for purchase. 100% of the net proceeds received from the sales of these pets and cloth will go to the Red Cross's Hurricane Relief Charity.

The 4 new pets are State Birds from some of the states affected by Hurricane Sandy
Cardinal
Oriole
Goldfinch
Bluebird

The 2 new types of cloth are:
Relief Red Cross
American Flag

These items will be appearing in the Speciality Stall of the Market after the Release 4.0 push. Check them out and let's help those in need!

Hey guys,
I wanted to give you all fair warning. We will be taking immediate and drastic steps to remove all unreleased items and admin items from the public game.

If you have one of these items, I STRONGLY suggest you get drop it / get rid of it. You are not supposed to have these, and if you have the item in your inventory when we put this fix out (coming VERY soon) it will do permanent damage to your character.

You shouldn't have these to begin with, but I wanted to give you all fair warning. Lose them now, while you can.

Willem

Announcement: Resolving the Weekend Hacking Incident

As many of you are aware, we had a dramatic hacking incident over the weekend. This resulted in a flood of unreleased, admin-only, or otherwise overpowered items coming into the game.

The development team acted fast and were able to close the security hole and stop the spreading effects of this quickly. As bad as this was, frankly it could have been much worse. Thankfully it hasn't done permanent damage, and this should all be behind us shortly. However, some damage to the game and economy did occur. Some of you have seen the results of this damage in unusable inventory and vault slots (that say “ART”) where ill-gotten items used to be.

Over the next couple of days we’ll be resolving the remaining issues arising from this incident. One part of this is that effective immediately (with the hotfix that we just released - 4.3.0), all items in inventory and vaults are temporarily soulbound. This includes all Equip Items and Stat Potions (note: Strike Amulets have to be treated separately; these will be removed from the game as part of the upcoming fixes). Once we have completed our fixes, all items will return to their normal status (minus those ill-gotten items we will have disposed of).

We apologize for not providing advance notice on this change, but it was necessary to do it this way. You will also notice a new Nexus Crier shouting this message to all on each server. Please help inform other players who may not see this notice.

Finally, as part of our efforts we are permanently banning all accounts where the "hacked potion" method was used to purchase (not trade for) unreleased or overpowered items. This is also effective immediately. We are evaluating what action, if any, to take against those who used or traded unreleased or overpowered items. We don't want to harm the play experience of people playing the game, but we have no problem banning those actively acting in ways (like using a hacked client or bots) that damage the game. As always, our decisions will be based on what is best for the game and for all of you as players.

The entire Realm of the Mad God Team would like to thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to resolve this matter.

Mike

Banned accounts are banned

As of now, all the accounts where the player purchased unreleased or overpowered items using the hack have been banned. We are not making exceptions for how long you have played or what guild you are in or anything else. If you hack the game, you will be banned.

These accounts will not be reinstated.

We are in the process of taking additional actions (thus the temporary soulbinding of all items) that will help clear up other accounts used in hacking, and remove most of the ill-gotten items from the game. Where we have to err, we will err on the side of not taking away legitimately acquired items.

This process shouldn't take more than a day or two, and then things will be more or less back to normal (as normal as Realm gets!).

Mike

Just to be really clear...

We are not making exceptions for hacking in these bans. A lot of accounts have been banned, some new/mule accounts, some long-time players.

However, we are not stopping anyone from starting again with a new account -- a fresh start is a good thing. Just don't hack the game!

So, to be really clear about this:

• if you paid gold for unreleased/overpowered items, your account has been banned.
• if you traded with another player for unreleased/overpowered items, your account has not been banned.
• Don't bother telling us you only traded when you really paid gold. We have very clear data on this and are making no exceptions.
• But if you believe you have somehow been banned erroneously, go ahead and submit a support ticket. Note that "erroneously" means that you did not pay gold or use a hacked client to get these items. "I didn't know" or "I'm really sorry" will not get you unbanned.

Release 4.4: Resolution of the Hacking Episode

We're happy to announce today's release (Release 4.4).

The major changes in this update are those that should resolve the recent effects of hacked items entering the game.

Most important of all: items are back to normal. If they were not soulbound before, they are once again not soulbound (those things that were soulbound before still are Smiling ).

Also, if you had "ART" icons in your vault or inventory, those should now be gone, and your vault and inventory slots will be fully functional. Note: it may take a little while for all the servers to catch up, so if you see "ART" in your inventory or vaults don't panic. If they're still there tomorrow, send a support ticket in and we'll investigate.

Given the potential magnitude of these events we unfortunately had to lock the accounts of many players, some of them ones who have been playing for a long time. This was done only when we had clear evidence that they had actively used a hacked client and purchased items with it. As has been discussed elsewhere in the forums, we had very clear data trails that enabled us to lock accounts that had been involved in hacking and delete the vast majority of the items created by this method.

For your information, we closed over 100,000 accounts as part of this effort. The large majority of these were mule accounts created this past weekend to be used for warehousing hacked items. Those accounts and all the items that were on them are gone. In addition, those players who participated in the hack had their accounts permanently locked (they can of course come back and start again, but not with the same account).

Very few (well below 0.5%) people whose accounts were locked as part of this turned out to have been locked erroneously (these occurred for a variety of reasons not related to the hacking or the data we used to resolve it). These accounts are being unlocked by the GMs based on support tickets, and most have already been resolved.

In addition, you'll notice that the giant pumpkin and the bats are gone from the Nexus. Harvest time is coming soon.

And finally, the Nexus Crier is on well-deserved vacation. Don't worry, you'll likely see him again as the need arises.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding as we worked through these issues. We have more things coming out soon too. Have fun!

Mike