Update 38: Nov & Dec 2023

Hi all and Happy New Year!

First off, we’d like to thank everyone that popped into the December playtest. We had a blast! We’ll describe that in more detail in a follow-up to this update. We’ll cover learnings from the playtests and some additional tech details. Expect it shortly.

This update is image heavy and a few of you have complained before - so leave this page open and maybe go make some coffee.

Now, let’s get to it!

Music

A new song has been added for the Sungreet Strand zone. It can be found as part of our soundtrack playlist and you can listen here while you read.

New Team Member

Please welcome Bill aka “Nickademus” to the team!

Prior to us pinging him, Nickademus was a longstanding member of our community who consistently shared his illustrations, maps, ideas, awesome attitude, and DnD campaign updates with all of us on Discord and the various streams. We’ve known him for a quite a while now, so we’re excited to bring him onboard as a Game Designer!

Character Art

Added Female Ogres
Female Gnome created (but not added yet)
Refined player character customization options to allow eye color, eyebrow, and other additional extras
Fitted helms to all the remaining races that hadn't have helms (goblin, gnome, dwarf)
Created new dwarf beard
Replaced placeholder halfling hair with nicer hair
Cleaned up Dwarf Female mesh
Tons of small tweaks to existing characters
Created and refined up-to 2 face options per race to meet desired texture standards
A variety of gear textures refined

Environment Art

Props created and placed in Night Harbor
New material tech implemented
Meshes cleaned up for use with new tech
New materials, textures, and trim sheets implemented
Night Harbor’s Riverbend District continued
Experiments started for use in new biome exploration
Lighting Modifications throughout Night Harbor
New High Fidelity Environment Textures

Lighting updates in progress:

Night Market made more accessible:

New Signs, Tradeskill Stations, and Props:

Experimentation with speeding up workflow & new area types:

Yes, we’re exploring new biomes this year, especially now that we’ve worked through the following pipeline updates…

Shading Improvements

Also:

Lighting and occlusion improvements in surface shaders
New Base Library of performant Surface shaders with variants for special use cases, such as buildings
Improved shader parameter
Improved texture packing
Terrain/Ground shading improvements implemented in Night Harbor

Improved ground shading and geometry utilizing new height blend shaders

Art Pipeline

Art pipeline structure for producing visually polished structures
Building surfaces use trim sheets, in conjunction with tiling, paintable, height blended materials (as seen on the ground), and use global maps to create a hand painted look and feel for large structures

Trim sheets, Height Blend Materials, and Global Maps

Animation

Rigging

Gnome Rig
Ogre Female Rig

Animations

Various Gnome Male animations
A start on Ogre Female animations
Polish and fixes across animations on various player races

Design

Content

Added population, items and quests to the Night Harbor Crypt
Added rowdy goblins and fisher(wo)men to the Night Harbor docks
Added various suspicious figures within Night Harbor - watch out for warnings if you land somewhere you shouldn't be!
Added small mob camps throughout Night Harbor
Added a few rare, time-based encounters to Night Harbor
Extended Elementalist initial newbie quest line (missing element)
Added new Elementalist class quest
Added new Monk class quests
Added new Wizard class quests
Riverbend District (The Bends) Populated
Bathing patrons have returned
The seas around Night Harbor might not be as safe as before
Some Sungreet Strand mobs have had their level ranges expanded
Sungreet Strand itemization work
Sungreet Strand mobs now use Abilities
Some Tomb of the Last Wyrmsbane mobs have had their classes fixed and abilities added

Content Fixes

Fixed Elementalist newbie quest triggers and retooled air djinn positioning
Fixed multiple Beastmaster/Druid/Shaman newbie quest issues
Rogue newbie quest adjusted - should now be easier to steal the eye
Warmth of the Hearth (the inn buff) now prevents you from consuming food/water
Removed all "old" zone lines, replaced with "new" zone volumes
Added missing zone lines, added new exit volumes & tweaked existing zone lines as needed
Added recipes to the campfire for our fine fishing fanatics
Added some props to help indicate where zone lines are in Deep Dunes
There are more merchants interested in critter bit drops
Identified & fixed NPC interactions that were not appearing in the Journal
The quest given Invisibility vs Undead Scroll is now no drop and not sellable
Plate and Leather merchants have lost interest in acquiring examples of "inferior" armor types

Balance

Mobs now regenerate 5% Max Health per tick out of combat (was mistakenly set to 20% Current Health)
Mobs now regenerate 5% Max Mana per tick out of combat, up from normal regen rates
Named Mobs and Bosses that have various Immunities to certain effects now have even more Immunities

Itemization

Port spells are no longer located on basic spell vendors and you must be a bit more adventurous to find them...
Light Sources brightness adjusted
Fixed duration of certain Light Sources and set them to gauge
Lantern cost reduced to 1 gold
Added Faction required sold items

Wording on Celestial Strike should now be a bit clearer
Several trainee bags are no longer tradable

General Abilities

Several Buffs and Debuffs are now stackable by multiple different casters, particularly DoTs and HoTs
Added Ability: Sense Magic, which allows those with the buff to see the buffs of a target when considering them
Added Ability: Fear the Dead
Added Ability: Lull the Dead
Added Ability: Ward the Dead
Added Ability: Lull Beast
Added Ability: Fear Beast
Interrupt cooldowns increased from 8 to 10 seconds
Added Element Break line: Element Break, Element Splinter, Element Crack, Element Fracture, and Element Shatter for Druids and Elementalists
Burning Embers line no longer reduces Fire Resistance
Melee Damage Dump abilities max damage scaling reduced by 10 damage at Max Level
Melee Damage Dump abilities bonus hit chance reduced from 30% to 25%
Blast of Air is now properly only an Elementalist ability, instead of a Wizard ability
Incinerate Mana and Mana Drain chat text adjusted
Battle Cry added to Fighter and Paladin (Self STR Buff, 2 min duration, shares cooldown with Martial Skills (Provoke, etc))
Unity added to Druid and Ranger (AOE Placate, Outdoors only)
Interrupt cooldowns increased from 8 to 10 seconds
Filled out the Magic Break line with Magic Splinter, Magic Crack, Magic Fracture, and Magic Shatter
Burning Embers line no longer reduces Fire Resistance

Bard

Screaming Vocalization tooltip corrected to show proper damage scaling over levels
Screaming Vocalization is no longer an interrupt

Beastmaster

Now has access to the Bat, Crocodile, Jackal, and Snake pets

Cleric

Added Ability: Divine Protection

Druid

Can no longer use Teleport: Shaded Dunes or Portal: Shaded Dunes
Added Ability: Charm Beast
Added Abilities: Teleport: Sungreet Strand and Portal: Sungreet Strand

Elementalist

Added Ability: Charm Elemental
Added Ability: Fear the Elements
Added Ability: Lull the Elements
Added Ability: Restrain the Elements
Added Ability: Ward the Elements

Enchanter

Added Abilities: Enchant Adamantium Bar, Enchant Bronze Bar, Enchant Cobalt Bar, Enchant Copper Bar, Enchant Gold Bar, Enchant Iron Bar, Enchant Mithril Bar, Enchant Silver Bar, Enchant Steel Bar, Enchant Tin Bar

Fighter

Made Defense ability description more specific

Inquisitor

Silence mana cost reduced from 30 to 15
Added Ability: Arcane Protection

Necromancer

Added Ability: Charm Undead
Added Ability: Restrain the Dead

Paladin

Shield Toss (30 yd range Targeted AoE Interrupt, shares cooldown with Might Skills (Strike, etc))
Unleash the Light (Frontal Cone Mez up to 10 targets - 2.5 min cooldown)

Wizard

New Ability: Mage Light (Summons a dim Mage Light which can provide up to 15 minutes of light)

Traits

Ultravision is now affected by Dayblindness
Ultravision is now limited to Deep Dwarves, Deep Elves, and Deep Gnomes
Infravision is now limited to Dwarf, Gnome, Goblin, High Elf, Ogre, Troll, Wood Elf
Regeneration is now limited to Troll
Ninja Warrior renamed Knife Thrower
Knife Thrower now gives Trainee's Throwing Daggers instead of Trainee's Shurikens
Duelist is now limited to Monk only
Duelist now grants 20 points in Dual Wield
Duelist no longer grants Double Attack skill
Added Fast Metabolism and Slow Metabolism Major Non Combat traits
Added Hardiness Buff
Added Slippery Buff (edited)
Iron Lungs trait now works properly
Updated the descriptions of several traits

Tech

Along with this hefty list below, we’ve got a detailed tech update coming shortly after this is posted. It will cover our findings from the stress tests in November and December, and provide more details on some of the features listed below. Stay tuned!

Fixes

Fixed various issues discovered during our stress tests encountered for characters in transient states while logging on/off
Fixed an issue where directional attacks (like backstab) were not working if an NPC was pathing
Fixed duplicate animation/sound playing during attacks for classes that could dual wield
Fixed an issue where spells that changed the character's position or facing would play their sound forever
Fixed an issue where the party leader was not being reassigned when the leader left the party
Fixed an issue in cases where a death packet was received before the client was created
Adjusted dwarf male first person cam position
Fixed pet window appearing when other clients summon pets
Fixed dispelling shrink on NPCs causing the npc to disappear
Fixed zone name not included in /who all searches
Fixed some issues with pet frames not displaying
No longer show zone name when /anon
/who arguments no longer match players where that particular data is hidden by /anon or /roleplay
Fixed not being able to see yourself when relogging with gm /hide active
Fixed a number of text mesh pro input fields not accepting more than one line
Fixed some places in Tel Ekir that were missing water visuals
Fixed an issue where NPCs were not facing the correct direction after coming to a stop
Clear LFG when accepting a party invite
Trait Items are now properly handled when a character is reset for HC/SSF
Fixed UI not appearing the first time the client is opened
Fix camera glitch when sitting
The player's name will no longer show instead of the NPC in journal entries
Corpses hidden by /hidecorpse will remain hidden once they leave the sphere of influence
Fix corpses showing in a standing pose
Multiple performance improvements
Improved performance and reliability of patching in Launcher
Lots of navigation tweaks
Monk h2h damage fixed
Fixed trading bags with no drop items inside

Additions

Added transparency to client models when the camera is close in third person
Full /who data is visible by GMs
Default stack slider set to be the size of the stack for merchants selling
Enabled shape selection on Volume Manipulators, and sphere volume shapes show up as sphere gizmos
Added interaction of coin with shift/ctrl modifiers that more closely parallels the same behavior for stacked items
Added "/loc c" that copies your location to your clipboard (GM ONLY)
Refactor: reduced duplication between the multiple InventoryUIManager click coin methods in preparation for future changes
Worked on corpse performance
Right clicking player unit frames (in group, your target, or your own frame) now has a menu for party operations
Added /leave chat command for leaving party
Settings/Options menu works on the login screen now
Added Client side portion of crouching - Default crouch key is F
Smoothed out speed bonus from jump over 0.5s instead of a larger bonus on the initial jump frame
Using an ability gem while sitting or crouching stands you up

Traits can now add to or override starting equipment
Added support for Traits that affect max health/mana and health/mana regeneration
Tweaked effects for Ultravision, Infravision, and Day Blindness
Traits can now increase resistances, and grant immunities and new abilities
Added inspectable Tait information to Skills window
Journal entries are now stored per-character
Abilities can now require a shield to activate
Added Duelist, Hardiness, and Slippery Traits
Adding or removing an item from trade after you or your trade partner completes the trade, but before you both complete it is now possible. It just resets the complete status
Merchants can now refuse to sell you specific items if you don't have enough faction, and can optionally hide the item
Merchants can now add or remove items based on Conditions
Merchant UI now has your currency displayed
Item flag NoCorpse (You will not drop it when you die)
Item flag NoSell (Can't sell it to a merchant)
Item flag NoDestroy (Can't destroy the item)
NPCs now regen when out of combat: HP at 10% of maximum per tick (it was mistakenly set to 25% of current HP) and 5% of maximum mana per tick (used to not get a boost)
Ranged weapons and melee weapons displaying on your character should behave more logically now
Added buff dispeltags and ability effect dispel by tag. This allows us to do things like dispel all fire buffs
Transmute item ability effect added. Only first item on your cursor is considered
Sense magic. While you have buff effect "smg" you can consider to show buff names on target
Damage by skill ability effect (dbs). Works like regular dmg but using skill value instead of stat value for bonus
Damage By Block: damage using a % of total block value, a defined element, and variance%
Damage by Slot Dmg value: Damage using % of damage value, the defined damageHID, and a variance%
Damage by Slot AC value: Damage using % of AC value, the defined damageHID, and a variance%
World server now syncs character status hid when changed via /gm on and off
New buff effect Bounce on Expire. This is a big one. Explanation later
New buff effect Cast on Apply. Allows you to define abilities to be cast on target instantly when the buff lands on them, with different abilities definable per stack count
Buff durations can now be defined in Ms for those sub 1 second effects
Allows an explicit definition for buffs to not overwrite if their casters and different (for stacking the same dot on a target)
Initial housing implementation
Players may now be feared
3-letter character names (down from 4) are now supported
You can now use /help <search> to search for any commands with descriptions that contain your search text

Guild Window

Members are now listed in a paginated view of 10 guild members per page
Added buttons for promoting and demoting the guild rank of members
Can now toggle to show all (including offline) guild members or just those that are online
Now displaying the total number of members, or total online
Escape key now works to close the guild window
Fixed guild registration not allowing keyboard input even if you didn't have the guild name field focused
Fixed chat filter settings for guild and guild officer chats
Added support for all lower case words in guild names. Indefinite articles and prepositions of 3 characters or less will now be all lowercase in guild names unless it is the first word

In Closing

Thanks again for your participation, support, streams, videos, and kind words!

We’ve really come to love our playtests with you and hope to do many more in 2024.

Many folks have asked how to support us and the answer to that is as always: Please share the word!

Thanks for reading this far, and keep an eye out for our detailed tech update and playtest summary. We’ll be posting it soon.