NS13

NS13 is the name for a major update to Kingdom of Loathing released on June 25th, 2007. NS13 moved the Naughty Sorceress Quest from level eleven to level thirteen, introducing new quests for levels eleven and twelve. The developers used NS13 as an opportunity to re-balance the game by introducing numerous changes to skills and other game mechanics. In addition to the many new items, zones and monsters added to the game, existing skills and quests were extensively tweaked and balanced/nerfed.

Summary of Changes

For a detailed breakdown of all the changes see the NS13 Change Log. What follows is a brief overview of the changes.

Quests and Zones

• Level 11 and 12 Council quests were added, encompassing some approximately 30 new zones and hundreds of monsters and items and at least 7 (no, really) trophies.
• Various changes and content additions were made to existing quests.
• A new guild quest was added, including "a new boss and some neat rewards."
• The Bounty Hunter Hunter's Shack was completely revamped.
• The Haunted Gallery was changed to be less significant to speed runs by changing the results of pulverizing antiques.

Ascension

• The Casual and Bad Moon ascension paths were added.
• Ronin was increased to 1,000 adventures.
• 80 adventures given after ascending was reduced to 40.

Items

• Level requirements were added to food/drink, booze, and spleen items.
• The Gift Shop items had their autosell values greatly reduced in order to prevent meat access during ronin by pulling and autoselling them.
• The facsimile dictionary was made untradable.
• Epic Weapons were completely revamped and made more powerful.
• Jewelrycrafting was revamped and Really Expensive Jewelrycrafting was added.
• Dungeons of Doom potions were made usable in combat.

Familiars

• Familiars no longer retain full-weight after ascending (previously you were able to select one to retain its weight).
• The Hovering Sombrero had its experience gain formula significantly weakened.
• The weight/effect ratio for familiars that act after combat (such as volleyball or fairy-type familiars) were diversified from being purely linear.
• Four new familiars were added.

Character Skills and Abilities

• The LTSynergy strategy was nerfed.
• The spellslinging strategy was nerfed.
• The stasis strategy was nerfed into oblivion.
• Spirit of Rigatoni and the special sauce glove were improved drastically.
• Chefstaves were introduced.
• Monster Level changes:
  • Substat gains due to monster level were increased (from 0.20 to 0.25).
  • Mind-control device analogues were added to all signs except Bad Moon, which didn't receive its ML-changing device until September 2009.
  • An anti-synergy between monster level and combat rates was created (this was removed nineteen months later).

Other

• The Adventure Queue was completely changed in an unknown way.
• Stat days had their substat bonus reduced to 25% from 50%.

Notes

• On April 1, 2007, a sneak preview was released, but this was merely part of an April Fools' Day joke.
• On May 24, 2007, a countdown to NS13 appeared on the login screen, set to 32 days, meaning NS13 would be introduced on June 25th.
• On June 17th, 2007, some clouds began gathering around the Kingdom, foreshadowing coming changes.
• There was a no spoiler policy, much like the one made for ascension.
• On June 24th, 2007, the day before NS13, Hagnk's Ancestral Mini-Storage went under construction. It was repaired September 19, 2007.
• Also on June 24th, 2007, a new non-combat adventure was added in The Grim Grimacite Site.

External Links

• The Official NS13 FAQ