Update 41: April 2024

Written By Shawn Lord

Hi all!

We’re back to a relatively normal production rhythm now that the dust from the Early Access Announcement has settled and the year is truly in full swing.

We’re happy to announce the addition of several new members:

  • Tom/Blink - Tom’s a video editor & motion graphics professional irl who reached out to us to help with videos (see below)

  • Jason/FyreFlyte - Jason was a designer on EverQuest 2 for around 11 years, and has worked on other MMOs in-between and since. He joins us on the design side with a focus on systems

  • Mike/Thornel - Mike is a freelance 3D artist from Poland who has come on board as an environment artist

  • Nate the Intern - Nate is one of Padas’s students who is hopping in this summer to help us with prop creation

We’d also like to mention that we’re planning to host another free public playtest at the end of June. We’ll likely have one or more stress tests between now and then. Who knows, this might even include a quick session during a stream - so be sure to be ready.

For more specific dates and details, keep an eye on our Discord for more information. Use our Notifications Setup there to ensure you don’t miss any updates.

That’s it for announcements - here’s the update!

Blink (mentioned above) put together a quick montage video of some of our progress to date.

Concept Art & UI

  • Armor Concepts

  • Some Mount Concepts

  • A Few Weapon Concepts

  • Began concepting animated 3D class icons

  • Item Icons and other UI work

 

Character Art

  • Worked on Sand Giant

    • Model complete

    • UVW complete

    • Texture in progress

  • Worked on Wolf

    • Model complete

    • UVW complete

    • Texture in progress

  • Iteration on Wood Elf Male

 

Animations

  • Wood Elf rigs

  • Wood Elf animation tests

  • Finishing up Orc animations

  • Additional Ogre Female animations

  • Additional Halfling animations

 

Environment Art

  • Fallen Pass development continued

  • Glass Flats work continued

    • Fang Guard Keep and surrounding ruins

    • Bone Field

    • Bandit Camp

    • Cultist Chasm

    • More Crystals

    • Necronaut Citadel

  • Added lightning vfx and sound to rain weather, tied to rain intensity

  • Added a new and more intense rain effect

  • New prop sets created - Bottles & Campsite

 

Audio & Music

  • Separated Thunder sound from Rain - Created new Thunderclap and Rolling Thunder sound events

  • Archery sounds (Bow Draw, Shot, and Impact)

  • Upgraded Jackal sounds

  • First pass on Dragon, Evil Eye, and Orc combat sounds

  • More Sword Clink variations

 

Design

Content

  • Keeper’s Bight mapped

  • Level adjustment on certain spawns in Wyrmsbane

  • Modified Bone Construct encounter

  • Tel Ekir Monster City first pass completed:

    • Added all class and profession trainers as well as appropriate merchants

    • In total, over 200 NPCs added

    • Several named mobs added throughout the zone

  • Tel Ekir Bloodynose goblins population adapted and extended

  • Glass Flats Base Pop updated; new POIs/Camps added

  • Sungreet Strand Quarry Population & Quests started

  • Shaman starter quest part 3 simplified and adapted to be more in line with expected player level

Itemization

  • Backpack storage capacity increased from 8 to 10 slots

  • Satchel storage capacity increased from 6 to 8 slots

  • Pouch storage capacity increased from 4 to 6 slots

  • Small Fieldpack storage capacity increased from 2 to 4

Traits

  • Halflings can now properly select Infravision

General Abilities

  • Auras are now Innate Abilities

  • Gate now has a cooldown of 8 seconds

Bard

  • Hymn of Inspiration moved from Level 8 to Level 16

  • Hymn of Inspiration mana regeneration changed from 1 (L10) to 15 (L60) to 1 (L16) to 15 (L60)

Cleric

  • Holy Fortitude HP Buff Line rebalanced to grant less HP overall

Druid

  • Woodskin AC Buff Line rebalanced to grant less AC overall

Elementalist

  • Reduced damage of Elemental Pet nukes and increased cooldown

  • Air Elemental Pet's Rush of Air aura proc effect now only procs off Main Hand Attacks

  • Fount of Mana mana regen reduced from 1 (L1) to 6 (L60) to 1 (L1) to 5 (L60)

  • Water Shield movement slow increased from 25% to 30%

  • Filled out the rest of the Manastone Line with: Summon Lesser Manastone, Summon Manastone, Summoner Greater Manastone, Summon Exceptional Manastone

Enchanter

  • Tranquility moved from Level 8 to Level 12

  • Memory Fog cast time reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds

Necromancer

  • Unholy Bulwark moved from Level 8 to Level 12

  • Mana Surge moved from Level 12 to Level 8

  • Filled out the rest of the Healthstone Line with: Summon Lesser Healthstone, Summon Healthstone, Summoner Greater Healthstone, Summon Exceptional Healthstone

Rogue

  • Ambush now properly requires Stealth

  • Ambush combat text fixed

  • Swift Strikes duration increased from 30 seconds to 1 minute

  • Added Ability: Low Blow

Shadow Knight

  • Unholy Bulwark moved from Level 19 to Level 28

 

Tech

Fixes

  • Lighting and water changes

  • Fixes to swim volumes

  • Client inventory refactor

  • Extended sunset/sunrise

  • Fixes to navigation and AI

  • Rebalanced NPC Hit Points

  • Damage and AC rebalances

  • Resist refactor: partial resists implemented

  • Threat refactor: sit, low health, and taunt aggro

  • Huge server-side optimizations

  • Fixed weapon damage abilities

  • Hide mana cost and range on ability descriptions when they are zero

  • +3 levels always con red

  • Health/mana regen from items no longer give you regen if you are hungry/thirsty

  • No longer reduce speed based on low dex values - rely entirely on health percentage for that

  • Converted pet control ui to new framework

  • Removed /rewind cooldown for gms

  • Fixed melee haste and spell haste from items being ignored

  • Fixed null ref when clicking a pet ability that doesn't require a target when the pet has no target

  • Fixed abilities like shoot not consuming reagents (such as arrows) when the ability misses

  • Fixed /pet back command when your last command was not attack sometimes sending him to the wrong stay/follow state

  • Fixed issues with network position interpolation (smoothing out player and npc movement)

  • Fixed harvesting animations not ending when harvesting is complete (RIP crazed axe wielding goblins)

  • Refactor and cleanup of character controller code

Added

  • A new system for replacing lights with "imposters" at distance was added.  This improves performance while mitigating the visual impact of disabled lights

  • Players will now kneel when looting

  • Added Fullscreen and Resolution graphics settings

  • Added Stance / Aura bar.  This holds certain "always on" toggle type abilities that won't need to be memorized, and shows which of them is active via an animated effect

  • Sitting NPCs benefit from increased health regeneration

  • NPC mana calculation now uses highest of wis/int instead of just int

  • Added /immortal command for gms - can't drop below 1 health

  • Added /pet get lost and /pet go away aliases for dismissing a pet

  • Added confirmation when dismissing pet, and a setting to disable the confirmation

  • Added dismiss button to pet UI

  • Added the name of the ability to resist messages.

  • Added "requires target to be in a group" to ability information.

  • Added low on food and low on drink messages.

  • Added pet sit functionality and added buttons to pet control interface

  • Experimenting with deterministic indoor volumes

  • Implement more dynamic weather

  • Server-side deep combat logs for balancing purposes

Aura/Stance Bar Added

In Closing

We’ve got a few things that are still in-progress/not ready for prime time that weren’t shown above, but you can likely get a peek on the livestreams before they hit the next update.

As you can see above, we’re steadily driving things forward with our Early Access timeline in mind.

And as always, if you want to support us: spread the word!

Point people to the links below:

See you all in the next update!

Shawn Lord
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Update 42: May & June 2024

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Update 40: Feb & March 2024