It was a correct guess about the highlighting thing in the Pharmacy.
That's the first on the changelog on their website, and it's far from the only one.
It's quite a patch, released without me noticing.
[For those who struggle to find their stuff in their stashes, inventory, or during trade, you will love this. Thinking about an item you own, or should appear in the window will highlight it.]
[You can share this highlight with others via the trade window, and NPCs will use it too.]
Indeed, this was a surprise and it's quite useful.
Highlighting potions or whatever the avatar needs will speed up the process.
Especially when practicing this open-grab-close method for emergencies.
There's more, and the list goes on longer than expected.
Do these kinds of updates happen often?
The game's quite new after all.
This change will reshape the landscape in the starter village so much, that CineMraft will be a new game.
Delivery and fetching missions had an overhaul too, the devs explain it in an article why.
The short answer is cheaters.
The long elaborates on a scheme to circumvent trade and decrease the time to get materials.
[We found an exploit our players used to gain rare resources after the economy update.]
[Since we allowed player-owned companies to hand out tasks, they used it to spawn items nearby. In the previous system, the goal of a contract was always within one kilometer.]
Yeah. That last errand with the rare lily and the zombies was exactly a kilometer from the pharmacy.
That flower on the zombie's hill looked way out of place.
The orchids were strange too, but this must have been an exotic desert plant, in the middle of a dense forest.
It took two hours to get it, but they would have waited days until a caravan brought it in from the desert.
[They abused this limit to spawn in rare ores and plants near their base. These resources would be only found days or months away from their headquarters.]
[Traveling to those cities to buy them and hire a caravan for delivery should cost a few gold coins and time.]
What did the pharmacy need all those poisonous flowers for?
How much profit did they make on the errands by handing it to a rookie?
The jobs paid a few silver, yet they must have turned a decent profit.
Selena nods as if she knows what the avatar reads, spacing out at her desk.
She helped to abuse the different types of delivery errands. She must have known about this exploit too.
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Did she know about the impending change, and gave the last jobs before they expired?
The first article that pops up on Wroddit already complains about this change.
The official patch notes go on for a while, explaining why they had to fix these things.
They claim that international trade in the game collapsed last week because of this.
Right, those caravans they mentioned in the article about trade centers.
So whoever bought the NPC companies had to use these to import, and they put out requests instead.
It's quite smart and too bad it won't be around longer, so the character could gain Exp from this exploit.
[To make it worse, the system highlighted the goal so any low-level adventurers could find it. This gave an unfair advantage to the companies, and the adventurers too.]
[So we decided to overhaul the fetching and delivery contracts. The tasks will no longer point to the item.]
It worried me at first, since they asked for some plant and how would a fresh player know how it looks?
And you only had to follow an arrow and pluck a glowing flower to collect the reward.
The challenge came from the destination, as the system often pointed at spawn points.
[Instead, the errand will describe the item, and mark the closest known deposit on the map. This will let the player find it wherever he wants. Buy it from the market? Travel to the neighboring kingdom? Take the job as the item is already in his hand, it will be all possible.]
Oh, so until now they would only accept one specific flower?
It didn't matter if you took a similar one if it wasn't the one the errand asked.
These are sensible changes, except the starter village will run out of jobs.
[First, there are no guarantees that the item will be where the arrow points. It no longer gets highlighted either. You better remember what you are looking for. A level three appraisal skill can also identify it for you.]
That is great, but you can't take skills below the tenth level, which will lock out every newbie.
And who else took these simple, low-pay errands until now?
The beginners.
They didn't stop here though, and reshaped the delivery tasks too.
[When NPCs or the Guild ordered items from player companies, a delivery errand started. These were always paid by the NPCs costing nothing to the players. Owners abused these by taking their contracts, letting them expire to inflate payouts.]
Okay, this doesn't make sense to me, nor does the lengthy math part where they explain how this worked.
What's important is a few paragraphs lower, where they announce the changes.
And that's another blow for the adventurers, who wanted to play it safe.
[In summary, NPCs who order something from player companies will send them a list and a price. Delivery will be the company's task, and the NPC employees can deal with these if instructed. If they can't leave their place in the company, we standardized delivery contracts.]
It seems unlikely that players would waste their money when their employees would do it for free.
And even if they did, these jobs seem like a complete waste of time, even for newbies.
They no longer come from the Guild, nor do they give Exp.
[The price is up to the players, so check the payout and the distance before you accept a contract. They can demand a collateral down payment as insurance, to ensure you don't steal their wares. This will work in the same way as the caravan system.]
So to reiterate, all these fetching quests Selena gave, and even doubled up, will no longer exist.
The ones the players give won't reward Exp, or increase the standing with the guild.
And you'll even have to pay for the players to ensure you won't steal their goods.
While it sounds like a fair way to patch some exploits, it also ruins the beginner's options.
How many of these did the avatar run in the last two days? Now it's nothing else but rats.
No, not even them after kicking off that stupid bandit event yesterday.
Trap crafting for Premium only.
Looking at Selena, her eyes have a strange gleam.
These changes hurt my prospects a lot, yet she seems satisfied.
The devs end the announcement claiming that an even bigger patch comes tomorrow.
They release big ones every week, and it wasn't even that.
Yikes, what's next?
Will they have enough ratting jobs left?
[Government Issued Quest: Reach Level 10 within 3 days. Importance: Utmost. Difficulty: Average. Progress: 8/10, Exp to next level: 6564/12800. (22/72 hours left).]