COX 2 Ver. 1.50.93 released!

Not gonna lie.  The last few months have been hard.  We lost a beloved cat, and that rocked our little family.  It also threw me off course with work on this game for more than a month, and I despaired for a time that I wouldn't have an update ready on schedule.  But I eventually came back to it, and in truth, it was a relief to have a passion project to sink my time and energy into.

Thanks, as always, for being the gamers and roguelikers that you are.  It's a lot more fun to work on the project when I know there's a receptive audience waiting.   

If you're patching the game, please let me know ASAP if you discover I forgot to include something!  It all looks solid on my end, but the patch always makes me nervous.

Here's what's new:

Major Improvements:

- 1 New Playable Race: Half-Fiend.

- 7 New Perks: Infernal Siphon, Havoc’s Toll, Hellborn Savagery, Carnage’s Boon, Void’s Tribute, Malady’s Touch, Soulfeast.

- 3 New Map Tiles: Shimmering Gateway, Mesmeric Mist, Abandoned Trader’s Cart.

- 8 New Events: Disorientation, Incessant Whispers, Anti-Magic Vortex, Cleansing Spirit, Twin Blood Moons, Astral Rift, Black Sun, Hope.

- 10 New Magic Items: Sorcery Crystal, Livewood Carving, Gift Horse, Blood Mirror, Brooch of Spirit Mastery, Blood Token, Crown of the Lost, Witch’s Charm, Death’s Hourglass, Seer’s Stone.

- 1 New Mundane Item: Letter of Favour.

- 4 New Spells: Control Spirit, Mind Blade, True Path, Falter.

- 6 New Weapon Enchantments: Cracking/Rending/Shattering, Spirit/Spectral/Ethereal.

- 6 New Jewellery Enchantments: of Unhindered Motion/of Free Action/of the Unbound, of Lingering Words/of Unyielding Script/of Endless Verse.

- 30 New Monsters: Desert Scorpion, Frostling, Doomvine, Euparkeria, Sinewy Tree, Giant Shrew, Stair Watcher, Tartalo, Peri, Oil Beetle, Desiccated Killer, Hollow, Shadow Dragon, Pyroserpens, Mountain Lion, Barbed Demon, Jack-in-Irons, Nuibus, Tiger Beetle, Dark Hunter, Flame Eidolon, Striped Dragon, Shadow Spore, Demon Rat, Bone Demon, Frozen Waste Troll, Alux, Scorpion Folk, Darkness Herald, Shadow Behemoth.

- 30 New Monster Variants: Dragon King, Horrible Ape, Dragon Mistress, Chaos Warrior, Chaos Champion, Marauding Dragon, Wood Ogre, Flying Bandit, Gnollish Zombie, Asterian Warlock, Leering Gargoyle, Caped Vampire, Kobold Tunnel Guard, Wandering Wraith, Hungry Ghoul, Hooded Spectre, Shimmering Ghost, Gateway Berserker, Quarrelsome Ettin, Bloodthirsty Minotaur, Dark Dwarf Warrior, Brutish Ogre, Weary Cyclops, Faceless Imp, Spiderfolk Wanderer, Grinning Gnoll, Raging Titan, Restless Satyr, Bugbear Warrior, Half-Ogre Upstart.

Minor Improvements:

- Pantosian Book of Whispered Secrets will now calculate and output your chance of successfully using it in red when queried.

- If you become Monster Attractant as a result of a Scent of Prey Event, the Bad Noise will now play, instead of it just being silent, and it will scroll the word “Attractant”.

- Querying Fiberian Shrines will now correctly spell out that Fibere cannot further enchant Legendary Weapons or Armour.

- Dragon Matriarchs now only grant a bonus to Defense to Dragons, not to both Attack and Defense. This was done because of the introduction of the new Dragon King variant (that adds to the Attack and Defense of all Dragons).

- Paralyzing Gas Vents will now appear on a level about half as often as before. This was done because of the addition of the new Mesmeric Mist, and I only want the odds of either to appear to be the old odds of Paralyzing Gas appearing.

- The Exegesis Perk now grants a 25%/50%/75% chance to retain Prayers after use rather than a 15%/30%/45% chance, because it was too weak as a Perk.

- Harness the Words now grants a 25%/50%/75% chance to retain Scrolls after use rather than a 15%/30%/45% chance, because it was too weak as a Perk.

- Control Undead, Charm Person, Charm Insectoid, Control Diabolic and Enthrall Wyrm have all had their casting cost raised from 40 Spell Points to 45, to better reflect their true utility.

- Speak with Animals has likewise had its casting cost raised from 40 to 45 Faith Points, for the same reasons.

- Modified confusing statement “The spread of poison in your system creeps slower...” when your Slow Poison spell wears off to “The spread of poison in your system has resumed its normal pace...” which is hopefully clearer.

- Hobgoblin Chosen yield 7 less Experience Points, as they were overvalued.

- Rebalanced weapons of the Fiends/of the Demons/of the Devils from granting +30/+50/+75 to hit when your Health is at 1/2 Max Health or lower to instead provide +25/+50/+75 to hit, for symmetry’s sake.

- When querying Miracles, the Faith Point Cost will be written in red if you lack sufficient Faith Points to cast the Miracle, to standardize it with other queries.

- Clarified in queries of anything dealing with the Deathbane spell that it won’t affect Automatons. It already specified that it won’t affect Fearless monsters, and all Automatons are innately Fearless, but this just keeps things clearer.

- Chariot of Blood, in addition to its other abilities, now provides +11% chance of Distance Strike instead of a nebulous sometimes +33% Distance Strike, sometimes not. (It was added to the game at a time when Distance Strike was handled differently, and didn’t keep up with the times).

- In both Acid and Acidic Vapour, the text output will now be prefaced by “Acid!” or “Acidic Vapour!” respectively, to standardize the text output with most other square interactions.

- When you resist Nausea in a Stench Cloud, the text output will now be prefaced by “Stench!”, to standardize the text output with most other square interactions.

- Clarified in query of Paralyzing Gas and Paralyzing Gas Vent that it won’t affect you if you’re already Paralyzed.

- Casting the Ascend miracle on Level 1 will now play the “no” noise instead of the spell’s sound effect, since the spell doesn’t actually take place. It’s graphic will also be covered by the prohibition symbol.

- Apothecary Tables can no longer be used if there are already 25 discarded Objects in the square, to prevent situations where the number of Objects in a square can exceed that number. This is reflected in queries of the Apothecary Table.

- Drinking Hot Vorduvian Tea will now scroll the amount of Spell Points you regain in addition to the word “Recharge”.

- Dark Gnome Lairs will always now contain at least 3 to 9 Gems squares, and have more prevalent Gems squares in the general map generation, to accord with the description of the Lair before entering.

- Defunct Wells will now be visually distinct from Wells.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed bug when you query an identified Prescience Scroll, giving it an incorrect title.

- Fixed error when creating a Seraph Paladin that claimed you would somehow receive both Expert Piety and Basic Piety (and screwed up the querying of the Combat skill, to boot).

- Fixed bug causing Dorallas to ignore any perks or Skills or whatnot that should modify the amount of spells you lose when she drains them.

- Fixed bugs that made the game incorrectly identify how powerful a given Weapon/Armour was when applying a random enchantment, if the object was either Improvised or Exotic. This would have resulted, most commonly, in overly powerful enchantments being placed on such items if you tried to enchant them.

- Fixed bug that could allow some Perks and some Magic Items not to function in Strangely Echoic Regions, when they should.

- Fixed major error causing activation of a Candle of Invocation to freeze the game.

- Fixed outdated info in Event text for when Vestonis appears in anger, claiming he’ll lower your Health and Max Health by 10, when he now only lowers it by 1 to 6.

- Fixed bug messing up the type of Pendulum Blade created when a monster triggers a Friendly Pendulum Blade Trap of any kind.

- Fixed bug basing the damage done to a monster in Pendulum Blade of any kind on the Dungeon Level, not the trype of Pendulum Blade it actually is. This was an overlooked holdover from when Pendulum Blade types were exclusively based on Dungeon Level.

- Fixed bug that could occasionally cause problems implementing the benefits the presence of a Vampire Countess was supposed to have on Vampires.

- Fixed bug not properly outputting name of Zombified Dragon when you query it.

- Fixed bug not granting Dragon Matriarch its bonus Health.

- Fixed bug causing the screech of Demonic Bats to only be possible when they hit you, instead of every combat round.

- Fixed bug causing Demonic Bats to be unable to screech when in combat vs. other monsters.

- Fixed bug preventing Northern Warriors from being generated.

- Fixed errors with Scrolls of Control Undead, Charm Person, Charm Insectoid, Control Diabolic or Enthrall Wyrm where, if you activated the scroll in an unoccupied space, and the scroll was unidentified, instead of potentially disappearing after use, the scroll would now be identified.

- Fixed bug not allowing new Events to be brought into play specifically as an effect of having stayed on a level past the Linger Warning, if there were already 10 Events in play (when 20 should be now allowed).

- Fixed multiple errors with Vetala, Dread Knights, the Puzzle Spear and Psionic Forehead Jewel, not always properly taking into account their abilities to substitute Intelligence for both Strength and Dexterity.

- Fixed error making it impossible to extend the duration of a Slow Poison spell by eating Bread.

- Fixed two different errors that could mess up the type of Animal summoned when the game tries to summon a random Animal.

- Fixed bug preventing Gingerbread from having effect if the only temporary negative effect you suffer from is Dancing.

- Fixed bug with Refreshing Rain Event that could remove temporary negative effects but leave the icons for those negative effects still visible.

- Fixed error preventing monsters from casting certain Cantrips.

- Fixed bug making it more likely than it should be that a monster would cast Bubbles when it already had many turns left on its current Bubbles effect.

- Fixed bug that could allow the Stairs or the Temple to be converted to Rubble if you were standing on either when an Earthquake occurred.

- Fixed bug causing the Eradicate Poison spell to always scroll the words “No Effect” even when it was effective.

- Fixed bug with any weapon of the Griffin, not noting its +30 to hit chance in the To Hit bonus portion of the query of that weapon (and adding the notation of this chance instead to weapons of the Devils).

- Fixed bug outputting incorrect calculation on the To Hit bonus portion of any query of any weapon of the Fiends/of the Demons/of the Devils.

- Fixed bug not properly giving the bonus to hit vs. Aberrations and Wyrms while wielding an Enigmatic/Mystical/Arcane weapon in the player’s offhand, and instead providing this as an additional bonus to those wielding Wicked/Vile/Unholy weapons in their offhand.

- Fixed bug causing the Personal Halo perk not to reset with each new map entered.

- Fixed bug allowing a monster to cast Bubbles in combat vs. another monster, even if it only had 3 Spell Points, when the spell costs 5 Spell Points.

- Fixed bug causing a Recuperate spell cast by a monster while in combat with another monster not to eliminate every bad effect on the caster.

- Fixed error causing some incorporeal monsters who can walk through walls to be unable to walk through Iron Bars.

- Fixed 3 separate instances of the same typo where it would tell you “Xeromancers are immunet to...”

- Fixed errors not taking into account all sources of Cold Resistance when determining how long you’d remain frozen after springing a Freeze Trap or from the special freeze abilities of an Ice Demon, Frost Giant, Winter Wight, Snow Witch or Chill Wraith.

- Fixed errors not taking into account a monster’s Cold Resistance when it’s affected by the special freeze abilities of an Ice Demon, Frost Giant, Winter Wight, Snow Witch or Chill Wraith.

- Fixed error causing Dark Gnome Architects to collapse the Fractured Walls they build atop themselves.

- Fixed error making the monsters of Monster Group 14 less common than they should have been, and the monsters of Monster Group 13 more common than they should have been.

- Fixed missing word in entry text to Camptosaur Plains.

- Fixed typo in entry text to Corrupted Arena.

- Fixed errors when generating the lairs of Yetis or Ice Demons that could mishandle the thickness of the Ice Walls generated.

- Fixed typo in query of Trapbreaker Charm.

- Fixed typos when outputting text explaining you had found an Indulgence, a Nurtured Dragon Egg or a Nurtured Dinosaur Egg omitting the “a” or “an” that should preface the item name.

- Fixed oversight not allowing the Medicinal Value perk to affect the amount of healing done when you drink Healing Broth from a Cauldron.

- Fixed bug causing Soul Guide Lantern to have no effect and Trapbreaker Charm to have the effect of the Soul Guide Lantern in addition to its own normal effect.

- Fixed bug causing Jewel of Glittering Wealth to have no effect and Stone of Stationary Purpose to have the effect of the Jewel of Glittering Wealth in addition to its own normal effect.

- Fixed bug with Dragon Wisdom Event that would properly turn Wyrms into spellcasters, but grant them 0 Spell Points and also a 0% chance to cast spells.

- Fixed bug that would tell you your chance of success in using a Cantrip Wand is 125% (instead of 100%) if you had Expert Wand Lore.

- Fixed text overwrite in query of Earthquake Beetle.

- Fixed bug scrolling “Creature Copy” instead of “Mirror of Dark Duplication” when you use a Mirror of Dark Duplication.

- Fixed error charging the Spell Point Cost of casting Repair twice.

- Fixed error charging the Spell Point Cost of casting Transmute to Gems twice.

- Fixed typo in query of Pool.

- Fixed bug causing Weapon enchantment of Tossing/of Throwing/of Hurling to have no effect.

- Fixed bug causing Spellstone to not deactivate after use, allowing you to use it infinitely to generate infinite Spell Points.

- Fixed typo in entry text to Sailback Hollow.

- Fixed typo in query of a Holy Quest Prayer.

- Fixed bug where Pagthion would get angry whenever you killed an enemy while dual wielding, when this was supposed to please him.

- Fixed bug causing harsh burst of static when stepping on a Grease square.

- Fixed bug causing harsh burst of static when an Idol comes to life.

- Fixed error not properly displaying your bonus damage from a Baloraasin’s Rage miracle when showing your damage range in your Inventory screen or when showing your damage range while querying a Monster.

- Fixed error where using an Open Locks spell on a Sacrificial Stone could release the Damsel from her shackles, but then she would just disappear.

- Fixed missing line of text in text output after casting Prestige.

- Fixed error that, if you resisted the effects of a Chemical Spray Trap, would thereafter put up the wrong graphic with the text telling you you had sprung a Chemical Spray Trap.

- Fixed errors allowing Arks, Jewellery Cases, Mysterious Cabinets, Wizard Chests, Weapon Racks and Desks that start the level open to sometimes be Trapped (which could become confusing if you found a Note or used a Detect Traps spell or something).

- Fixed bug leaving Kalvar’s name blank when querying him in the Caves of Dread.

- Fixed bugs scrolling “Occupied Square” instead of “Not Here” when you try to cast Sea Summons on dry land.

- Fixed extra text line of gibberish output when you resist becoming Dizzy after drinking Elderberry Wine.

- Fixed error with Rotworms Event that wouldn’t destroy any Food item stored in your final Inventory slot.

- Fixed error not properly setting the timing of the Linger Warning in Legendary Lands.

- Fixed text overwrite in query of Lordling’s Nightmare.

- Fixed text overwrite in query of any Cloud Dragon variant.