Hello folks! Today the reconstruction of Aetolia's curing goes live! This post is long, but it has important information, so please read it all. A copy will also be posted on the forums here http://forums.aetolia.com/discussion/2530/herbalism-and-apothecary/ so you can post feedback and questions.

=== OVERVIEW ===
As the Bloom ravaged Aetolia, victims found that curatives began failing them. The newly discovered purgative did not abate this complication -- instead, it made it worse. Due to the plague, the cure, or both, the physiology of those infected changed. This, compounded by the sludge's decimation of local flora, has forced mortals to look elsewhere for relief. Thankfully, the Apothecarium in Esterport's research into new cures in the onset of the Bloom has doubled in benefit, and with the crisis over, they are sharing their results!

No longer do undead and living use separate cures, rendering the skills of Reanimation and Concoctions obsolete. Instead, the skills of Herbalism and Apothecary have risen to the fore.

Herbalism involves harvesting herbs to produce pills, which are the replacement for herbs and slices. Some of their herbs can also be smoked in a pipe, replacing tinctures and the old smoked herbs.

Apothecary involves collecting parts from animals (that you need to kill) to produce elixirs and poultices, which are replacements for elixirs/serums and salves/poultices respectively.

HELP HERBALISM, HELP APOTHECARY, AB HERBALISM and AB APOTHECARY offer further details on these skills. You can find a list of new cures and their old equivalents under HELP CURES.


=== TRANSITIONING ===
That said, we've done as much as we can to make the transition smooth:
- FirstAid has been updated to support the new cures.
- Common curing commands will substitute your input with the appropriate new cures.
E.G.: 'outc moss, eat moss' will become 'outc anabiotic, eat anabiotic' for you.
- You can type the first 4 letters of most of the new cures for shorthand in these same commands.
E.G.: outc anti, eat anti, for antipsychotic.
- CONFIG CUREMSGS LIVING or CONFIG CUREMSGS UNDEAD will change the output of a lot curing and discernment lines to match their old lines for living and undead players. It's our hope that this setting, combined with the substitution above, should allow your systems to have little to no need of update.
- Use CONFIG CUREMSGS DEFAULT to go back to the default, new cure messages.

Unfortunately, those of you with limp_veins in your system will need to update them to remove it, as the affliction was deleted along with these changes (it did the exact same thing as asthma).

*** NOTE: To support you in the initial days of these changes, you can type in CAREPACKAGE once anytime within the next two weeks to receive a limited amount of each pill, elixir and poultice. ***


=== IF YOU HAD REANIMATION OR CONCOCTIONS ===
If you have Reanimation or Concoctions, the first thing you'll probably notice is a big ugly notification when you log in telling you to read this post and SELECT HELP.

There are three choices available to you: Switch to Herbalism, switch to Apothecary or get a full lesson refund. If you choose to switch to one of the new skills, you'll be at the same skill points as you were in the old skill. However, please realize that skill ranks for many of the cures have been changed around. If, for example, you only learned Concoctions to make health elixirs, you might find you'll not have access to that in Apothecary at your skill level.

Use the SELECT HELP command for syntax on switching or obtaining a refund.


=== ARTIFACTS ===
- Harvesting gloves (quick_harvest) will carry over into Herbalism and serve the same purpose: Doubles the base amount you can harvest each day, and improves balance recovery on most Herbalism actions. Wearing these also bypasses the need for an iron sickle.

- The reanimation scalpel will carry over into Apothecary, although its function has changed slightly. It is now the direct equivalent of the harvesting gloves, in that it will double the base amount of animal parts you can collect each day, instead of doubling the output. It also improves balance recovery on most Apothecary actions, and bypasses the need for an iron scalpel.

We'll be offering a direct 1:1 conversion for the gloves and scalpel if you decide to pick up the opposite skill instead. Message myself or Oleis to discuss that.

If you have any other artifact that served a purpose in Concoctions or Reanimation, and no longer does in the new skills, again please message myself or Oleis to discuss options.


=== GENERAL CHANGES ===
Now some general changes that you should take note of:
- Preparing curatives now requires you to be in a special Herbalism or Apothecary room. Cities can purchase these room upgrades for 10,000,000 gold each.
- Animals no longer drop their parts on being killed -- an Apothecarist must collect the part from their corpse.
- Limp_veins deleted, as mentioned above.
- There is now a new commodity shop in the Siha Dylis area in Azdun, selling gold, silver and stone.
- Herb populations are now shared globally and harvesting mechanics have changed slightly (HELP HARVESTING).
- Daily harvesting limits have been reduced drastically.
- Collecting parts from animals has a daily harvest limit now (Unlike Reanimation).
- Anybody with an iron scalpel (from Forging) can now autopsy and dissect old Reanimation slices from corpses, if you need them for something.
- Anybody with an iron sickle (From Forging) can now harvest old Concoctions herbs, if you need them for something (although these will be hard to find until the sludge event is resolved).
- Racial improved harvesting skill now only raises your daily limit by 100 herbs, instead of 25%.

In the interest of preserving our database space, I've gone ahead and deleted from caches, shopcaches, inventories and rooms the following:
- All Reanimation organs, dried organs and slices.
- All Concoctions herbs and parts.
- All elixirs, poultices, salves, tinctures, and serums (their containers willl remain).

And in the interest of ensuring nobody has a head start on these changes, I've also gone ahead and deleted all of the new herbs and animal parts that were obtained the past few days due to ongoing game events.


=== THE NEXT FEW WEEKS ===
While we adapt to this system, we'll be keeping an eye on numbers and how things are going. You'll no doubt see a lot of adjustments in that regard, and possibly even changes to what ingredients are used for each cure.

As the first few days are undoubtedly going to have heavy demand, I'll be cranking up the numbers (plant regrow time, plant max, mob respwan time, etc) and then slowly dialing them back down to our desired levels.

For the next 72 hours, the Apothecary in Esterport will have a public Herbalism and Apothecary prep room where you can find cures. After that, there will be a nominal gold fee to gain access to it for 24 hours.

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 12th of Ios, in the year 465 MA.