New stuff

I have decided to focus a bit more on events and bringing more strategy to invasions.
Until recently, the invasions revolved around being strong and using the best gear. For the high end monsters, only the fighters had a real chance, and there was very little team spirit.
With the last monster, Mare Bulangiu, and to some extent with the Bulangiu, the things changed a little. Those monsters are pretty hard to fight in melee combat, due to their high armor and damage. In order to kill them, it is best if you employ some different methods at the same time.
For example, people can harm them, while the archers can shoot at them, and the summoners can summon rats to save the tanks some hit points. And with the last Mare Bulangiu, people actually did that.

So now I was thinking to improve that a little. I want to implement a few new things:
1. New summoned monsters that will be relatively cheap, but be better tanks than the rats, who die in one hit. Another monster would have the mirror skin perk, which can help a lot. Maybe even something with the self destruct perk. This new monsters would need a relatively high summoning level, however.

Then I can add some special mines that do more damage vs invasions, and some special arrows and bolts that can have some new effects over invasions as well. I am not sure when I will add all those new things, but I hope I'll do it in a month or less.
Afterwards, a lot more people can contribute to the defeat of the evil forces :)

The economy

EL has a really big economic side to it, and although players often complain about stuff, they mainly like it if they keep playing the game.
One of the biggest problems is that the manufacturing skill does not bring enough income. This is mainly due to the fact that there is a very fierce competition between the players, and often the end product is sold at a loss. Many players try to make great swords, in the hope that they will get lucky and produce an enchanted version. The non enchanted versions are sold at very low prices, because the demand is smaller than the production rate.
I always told those who complained about the economy, as though it is my fault, to actually take the matter into their own hands, and not lower the price to below the value of the ingredients. Now, it seems that they finally realized that it might be a good idea to do so, and they agreed to go on 'strike' and not sell items at a loss, which is great.

Now, there are a few solutions to this problem, but, as with anything, some people will love them, and others will hate them. For example, one solution would be to increase the break rate of the great swords (which I did). Before doing that, there would be one or two great swords breaking each day, which is not that much considering that there are probably 100+ players using them. Assuming a totally equal chance to break one, that means that each player has a chance of about 1.5% to break a sword in a day, which means that a sword would last, statistically, 2+ months. Given the fact that the cost is only around 20-25Kgcs, that's about 400 gc per day, which is not that much.
Another solution would be to make a formula that produces the enchanted version of each sword, so that the manufacturers can reliably make them. Of course, the formula would have to be quite expensive, and use ingredients that cost at least 200 Kgc. The formula would also need to require a very high manufacturing level, in order to reward those who worked harder.

Another way to help the economy in general is to add new gold sinks. The more important the gold becomes in the game, the more valuble it is, which drives costs down. On a related note, the archery skill is not that useful (although it has some uses).
So to address both issues at the same time, I came up with a new potion that cost 15Kgcs, available for now only from the NPC (which means, it is a gold sink). This potion permanentely increases by 1%, up to 60% the chance to do a critical shot with the bows and crossbows. A critical shot means that all the armor penalty is removed.
So a player who spends 900Kgc and has a high ranging skill can be quite competitive in PKing (especially if they are in a team).