These are the changes that were implimented on August 3rd 2002 for a much more interesting Disc! As for the post, I _think_ that it was made by Pinkfish, however I may be wrong (if so, email me so I can fix it, thanks =)

I just thought that this was so important that it deserved an entire new section, instead of being integrated into the news section. Read on =)

Note #8 posted at Wed Jul 31 Title: "August 3rd"

As August 3rd approaches we are solidifying the details of what will change
so here is some more information.

It is _extremely_ important to understand that on August 3rd any number of
things may be broken or simply unbalanced. We know that many things will
need rebalancing (mostly NPCs downgrading and commands, spells & rituals
being made easier).

What's changing?
----------------

- Skill tree
  We're moving certain skills around and adding a _lot_ of crafts skills.
  There won't immediately be any use for these new craft skills, however
  they are important for the development of the crafts system. Without
  the skill tree it becomes really hard to abstract the stages of
  crafting.

- Skill/stat relationships
  The relationship between skills & stats is changing
  substantially. Currently many skills depend on a single stat. If you've
  ever played any RPGs you'll have noticed that RPGs don't tend to do this
  at all. The reason is that it causes individual stats to become far too
  important for a given character type (or class). We have seen the same
  thing here on DW.

  The advantage of a 23 Int to a wizard (for example) is so overwhelming
  that there is practically no other choice. The point of these changes is
  to narrow the gap between an extreme and a more generalist rearrange so
  that players have a real choice that they don't currently have.

  Clearly this change is going to seriously change the balance of abilities
  and we know that we're going to need to make many spells, rituals,
  commands and npcs much easier!

  I can't stress this enough. The point of these changes is not to decrease
  peoples abilities. We will change things to suit the new bonuses that are
  achievable.

- Stat/bonus relationship
  The stat to bonus relationship is becoming non-linear. This works with
  the skill/stat relationships to make less extreme rearranges more
  appealing. Because of the non-linear relationship rearrange will allow
  players to rearrange up to 28 if they so desire. Even though I expect
  most won't want to go that far the choice is there.

  The balance point for the change is 15. Stats above 15 will give less
  bonus than before while stats below 15 (ie. the majority) will give a
  greater bonus than before.

- Magical defense system
  There's a new system that allows magical shields to register with the
  armour system rather than shadowing query_ac(). This has two
  advantages. Firstly it does without shadows (which helps performance) and
  secondly it allows shields to register as being outside of armour (that's
  what shadowing did) but alternatively to register as being _inside_
  armour (just above the skin) which is far more logical for the troll skin
  armour for example.

- Combat system
  The current combat system code is horrendous (just ask anyone who's tried
  working on it). It was written in 1995 by a physicist. Since then it has
  been hacked about, modified and upgraded and is now a nightmare. The new
  one started as a code tidyup and turned into a total rewrite.

  The new system is based on a different approach to the old one. Each
  attack is done as a skill against skill test rather than as an attack
  skill check then a defense skill check.

  This means that the new system is rather more sensitive to relative
  skills. A player with a 200 offensive bonus is unlikely to get past the
  defenses of an NPC with a 1000 defensive bonus regardless of how many
  negative modifiers the NPC has.

  We will, therefore, need to downgrade some of the NPCs who've been given
  extreme levels to compensate for issues with the current system. In
  addition we will increase the death XP (probably doubling it) given by
  NPCs to compensate for their being more difficult level for level.

  The combat system has some nice new features too.
   + more interesting damage messages
   + more offense & defense tactics
   + variable rate hp monitor
   + verbosity control for third-party combat messages
   + ability to focus on (target) specific body parts
   + ability to hold two-handed weapons in a single hand
   + new specials: feint, shove & trip (more to come :)
   + specials can be queued
   + defend as well as protect (defend means you'll parry for someone but
     you won't take a hit for them)
   + many more factors affect combat: strength, dexterity, visibility,
     light levels, encumberance, injury, number of weapons wielded, weapon
     weight, relative weights of offensive & defensive weapon (or shield)
     and many more.

  The new combat system does not implement new ranged or unarmed
  combat. These will (I hope) follow once the new system is bedded down and
  working nicely. Apart from the goodies listed above the new system is far
  better in its structure, documentation and flexibility. Each stage of
  combat is clearly separated out and documented. The system for combat
  specials allows any and all stages of combat to be overridden or
  augmented, both offensively and defensively, providing far greater
  flexibility in specials e.g. feint, trip and shove. As a truly extreme
  example, The floating shield spell now works as a defensive special! In
  addition the new structure should make adding critical success & failure
  (injuries), combat on horses and other future enhancements much easier to
  implement.

- Specials
  The new combat system features new specials. Many of them have the same
  names as the existing ones but they are, like the combat system,
  completely new -- only the name has been unchanged to confuse the
  guilty (or something :).

  Which specials can be used is determined by the weapons attacks. Their
  difficulty and damage values are similarly dependent on the skill of the
  user and the weapons attacks thus none of the standard combat specials
  are any more, or less, powerful than any other, it all depends on the
  weapon.

- Weapons
  Weapons have been rebalanced and standardised so that they should have
  much more suitable weights, lengths, materials & damages.

  In addition the weapons have been given standard attack names that
  correspond to the new specials:
  stab   - light piercing weapons
  pierce - heavy piercing weapons
  bash   - light blunt weapons
  smash  - heavy blunt weapons
  slash  - light sharp
  slice  - heavy sharp
  hack   - light axes (sharp still but axes rather than bladed weapons)
  chop   - heavy axes

  impale, behead, crush & cleave are warrior only. They are basically the
  same as pierce, smash, slice & chop but do a tad more damage and have
  some nifty side-effects if you kill your opponent. In due course we may
  implement more guild-specific attacks like this that feature messages and
  perhaps side-effects that fit more closely to a guilds theme.

- Armours
  All the armours have been reworked to be more balanced and more
  consistent (ie. heavier armour tends to stop more damage than lighter
  armour!).

- Carrying capacity
  Players are now limited to 10 'carried' items. Originally it was 5 + Dex
  but that was set back when the only carryable container was a small
  chest. Now that we have backpacks, sacks, clothing with pockets and
  containers of all sizes and descriptions it makes sense to reduce the
  limit a little to help avoid massive packratting leading to performance
  problems.

- Stats
  All bonus statistics given out by quests will be removed. In addition
  players will receive a second rearrange so that they can apply their
  stats to the new skill/stat relationships and the (possibly) reduced
  stats.

- PK Flag removal
  The changes are so extreme that we felt it's the right time to remove all
  players PK flags (except Assassins and those in the PK wizard order) so
  that players can make a choice once they see how the game works.

- Wizard scrolls
  Keeping large numbers of these in your inventory may lead to their
  exploding depending on your magic.spells.special bonus. Players should
  be aware that leaving large numbers of scrolls in other containers (such
  as vaults) may also lead to their exploding.

- Starting Position, Nationality and Region
  Players will get to choose a nationality and region. These will
  affect language with the 'common' language going away.

- New AM
  What can I say? AM has been completely reworked. The sometimes old,
  sometimes even pre-Discworld code has been taken away and replaced with
  shiny new code, exciting terrains and a complete AM. Not complete as in
  finished, there's much more to do and far more to add, but complete as in
  you can walk around the whole city, across all the bridges etc. etc.)

- Sur terrains
  We're filling in the blanks. Gradually all the gaps between the different
  cities are being filled with terrains that allow you to explore in great
  depth or journey across them quickly. This change will add the Sur terrains
  to the game.

The Plan(TM)
------------
Around 10am Seattle time we'll shutdown the mud and bring it back up
creator-only. Once we've got all the changes in place we'll enable player
logins and start fixing all the bugs and other problems that you find for
us :)

Well, there you have it. The complete post as it was on the Discworld news system on July 31st =)