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On November 30, 2001 and well into December 2001, the game of Dragon Court was forever changed for DC Test players. Things were never quite the same again for those who had experienced a unique situation that was largely unknown to the players of the regular version of Dragon Court. It was only briefly mentioned by a couple players on the Dragon Court forums and those who were aware of the events that were happening in DC Test may not have thought that it was anything important. However, some of the events that occured during this short period of time were a precursor to the DC Upgrade that was to be implemented in the coming months. The "bugs" highlighted in bold are the ones that were carried over to the DC Upgrade.
These "bugs" were fixed on December 8, 2001, which gave DC Test players 8 days to take advantage of the bugs. This was more than enough time for me to record most, if not all, of the strange things that had happened to the game.
Bugs involving weapons:
When trying to deposit a weapon to the storage box, it'd ask for more than one quantity of that weapon. The quantity was equivalent to the amount of attributes that the weapon had.
Adding Flames to a right-handed weapon didn't do anything.
Adding Luck to a weapon didn't do anything.
Adding Bless to a weapon didn't do anything.
Weapons with attributes such as Flames, Luck, and Bless had different statistics from their backpack and from the store. The base stats of the weapon were listed on its information box.
One of the most noticeable changes to DC Test was the loss of the diversity of weapons, for the stats of weapons were now predictable instead of random. What surprised me most was that the Giant Maul offered greater attack points than the Masamune! Each weapon had the following stats:
Asaura (Ninjas): +6d/+4s
Asaura (Peasants): +5d/+2s
Cross Bow: +8a/+8s
Dragon Shield: +7d/+6s
Dwarf Axe: +7a/+1d/+2s
Elf Bow: +10a/+6s
Flaming Sword: +6a/+2s
Foul Axe: +8a/+4s
Giant Maul: +18a/-8s
Goblin Pick: +7a
Goblin Pike: +8a/+2s
Goblin Shield: +5d/-2s
Half Plate: +6d/-3s
Koutetsu: +3a/15d/-5s
Long Bow: +6a/+4s
Magic Staff (Dungeons): +8a/+8d/+8s
Magic Staff (Mounds): +5a/+5d/+5s
Masamune: +15a/+10s
Mercury Sandals: +12s
Miners Cap (Dungeons): +7d/-3s
Miners Cap (Mounds): +5d/-2s
Mithril Mail: +6d
Mystic Robes (Body): +8d/+4s
Mystic Robes (Head): +4d
Pike: +7a/+2s
Rams Horn: +3a/+5d/-3s
Rat Tail Whip: +8a/+2d/+8s
Shuriken: +8a/12s
Snake Scale Suit: +12d/-3s
Staff: +4a/+1d/+2s
Terror Rod: +7a/+3s
Throwing Knife: +3a/+3s
Unicorn Horn: +8a/+3s
War Boots: +3a/+4d/+5s
War Tusk: +3a/+3d/-1s
Other bugs:
The storage was switched with the backpack. In other words, everything that was deposited in the storage ended up in the backpack and vice versa.
Unidentified weapons were marked with an [?].
If your backpack was overloaded with items, it would tell you that it was.
The amount of skill on a weapon was now revealed in the backpack and in the shops. In the past, only the amount of Attack and Defense was revealed without referring to the information box.
The words of items that were sold in the in-game shops became smaller and bolder.
Players whose backpack was full were not able to acquire items that they didn't already have in their backpack.
The attack commands for the Berzerker, Boar, Gryphon, and Rat were rearranged.
Some players gained a level or two as soon as they started questing for the day.
At the start of each day, at least one equipped weapon was guaranteed to rust. Items and weapons from the backpack were also susceptible to rust. Items, such as Cooking Gear, didn't help prevent the rust.
Even if it said on the exit screen that a character gained fame points, he or she didn't necessarily gain them if he or she died at least once that day.
Blast inflicted 100 points of damage instead of the normal 25 or 50.
Mesmerizing and Swindling abilities weren't working. For instance, you couldn't get mesmerized by a Unicorn and you couldn't mesmerize creatures if you had the ability to do so.
Players could only purchase 100 of any item regardless of their level.
It was impossible to encounter creatures that were exclusive to the Docks.
Players could no longer polish weapons that couldn't normally be polished. Only weapons with an ampersand(@) could be polished.
Field Soldiers and Giants had significantly lower stats.
A blank screen showed up when you clicked on Smithy's weapon shop.
Nothing could be purchased from the Goblin Mounds shop.
The Dark Vortex was working in the Test Version, but the message "Error: LMG=No Launch File" showed up whenever Evil Fred was defeated. (The Dark Vortex didn't previously work on DC Test.)
Players received exactly 6,000 Food from the Peasants.
Items, such as Kookies and Healing Salves, were marked with an (xx) after the item name; xx = amount of that item.
Players were able to sell junk items to the in-game shop owner.
On December 10, 2001, even more "bugs" emerged:
The experience bar of the character was partially blue, indicative of how much experience that the character had and how much more was needed to advance to the next level. This didn't previously work.
Selecting one weapon automatically selected all weapons.
Rutters to Hie Brasil became junk items. It was now impossible for DC Test players to venture to Hie Brasil.
Cookies didn't do anything anymore.
A screen that said "Half of your equipment is lost" appeared when your character died.
Weapons couldn't be equipped, but weapons already equipped could be removed.
The text of an item's description was slightly larger and tilted to the left of the screen.
Weapons were no longer being sold in the in-game shops.
There was a bug in the in-game shop; each item was set by an amount equivalent to the price of that item. For instance, 5,000 Castle Permits were automatically set because they costed 5,000 marks.
Each character received the following note from Fred: "In order to help test, some of you will be randomly received cookies and bottled faeries."
Even after these changes, many errors persisted on DC Test. DC Test was never the same again.
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