Update:Behind the Scenes - June (2007)

This month will see the first batch of something we are lovingly calling ‘Bits and Pieces’ projects. Basically, we’ve spent a great deal of time trawling through the Suggestions Forum and in-game comments, and then compiling a giant list of requests for small changes and improvements to the game, the first few on the list being launched this month. These will range from tiny additions like a right-click option to get to Entrana that doesn’t involve clicking through the text every time, all the way up to raising the power of crossbows.

The list continues to grow, and we will be releasing more ‘Bits and Pieces’ in the future, so please carry on posting your suggestions in the Suggestion Forum.

Our only quest in June offers you an opportunity to take part in a rather odd story. Now, I’m sure that most of you have heard about the little boy who kicked his ball over the fence, only to find an evil witch decided to hide it in her garden shed. Some of you may have even snuck into the house and tried to rescue it… but what has the witch been up to since? To the untrained eye, it looks like she might have just been walking up and down her garden lobbing the odd teleport spell at a wandering adventurer… but in reality she has been deviously planning her next menacing experiment to throw at the unsuspecting (and a bit slow) druids nearby. In Grim Tales, you’ll be shouting through windows in tall towers, telling bedtime stories to griffins, climbing beanstalks, drinking shrinking potions and even battling the next of the witch’s creations. Don’t be fooled into thinking it will be a simple care-free journey, though: you should know by now that our fairy tales are anything but that.

While all this is happening, the baddies of the fairy tale world - wolves and werewolves - and all their family will be heading to the Makeover Mage for a bit of a polish. The wolves will look hungrier, the werewolves more brutal, the jackals more cunning and the hellhounds more hellish. On top of this, Canifis has called in the builders and will unveil what the decorators and landscapers have done.

Elsewhere in the world you’ll be noticing odd crop circles and strange imp-like creatures popping up all over the place. Implings like to collect things, especially things that humans want. When they’ve found something tasty, they take it back to their maze-like world of wheat, and fly about playing hide-and-seek.

You may be able to find these implings outside their extra-planar home, trying to cause trouble and collect yet more small interesting trinkets. Each type of impling likes to collect things based on a theme and require different Hunter levels to catch, starting at 17. The dragon implings, for example, like to collect objects that have the word 'dragon' in their name, including the new dragon arrows and darts. Of course, they will require an impressive Hunter level of 83 to catch...

Finding and catching the implings on the surface may be a tricky task, but if you follow them home to their maze you will have to contend with imp guardians that object to you catching their impling cousins, and a maze that keeps changing ... Just the sort of things you’d expect in an area filled with imps.

Of course, to fire dragon arrows you’ll need a new bow to shoot them from… which brings us on nicely to the lvl 60 dark bow. This new bow, complete with its own special attack, will be available by killing dark beasts (lvl 90 Slayer target).

We will also be working on other graphical improvements in the game, including Crandor, Melzar’s Maze and Crandor Dungeon. We even invited Elvarg herself to the makeover chair.